Personal  Religion  and 
the  Social  Awakening 


»S  L.  FINNEY 


BR    lib  .Sb  Fb  1913 
Finney,  Ross  Lee,  1875-1934 
Personal  religion  and  the 
social  awakening 


L 


NOV   fi 


Personal  Religion  and 
the  Social  Awakening 


By 

ROSS  L.  FINNEY,  Ph.  D 

Professor  of  Philosophy  and  Economics  in 
Illinois  Wesleyan  University 


Cmcmttati : 
JENNINGS  AND   GRAHAM 

EATON  AND  MAINS 


Copyright,  1913,  by 
Jennings  and  Graham 


Contents 


Chapter  Page 

I.    The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian 

Faith, 9 

II.    The  Social  Effects  of  Individual 

Morals,       - 33 

III.  Social  Christianity  Begins  at  Home,  -  49 

IV.  The  Social  Harvest  of  Materialism,  65 

V.    The  Social  Fruits  of  the  Spiritual 

Life, 81 

VI.    The  Social  Benefits  of  Self- Denial,  97 

VII.    The  Social  Function  of  the  Church,  111 

VIII.    The  Social  Need  of  a  Religious 

Awakening, 133 


Preface 

THE  object  of  this  little  book  is  to  harmonize  the 
divergent  tendencies  of  personal  religion  and 
social  religion,  to  show  that  they  are  not  at  all  an- 
tagonistic, but  mutually  supplementary;  to  make  it 
clear  that  we  need  the  ideals  and  ends  emphasized 
by  the  social  awakening  to  motivate  our  personal 
religion,  and  that  the  social  awakening  needs  the 
emotions  and  enthusiasms  of  personal  religion  to 
vitalize  it. 

We  need  the  insight  to  discern  that  personal  sal- 
vation is  a  vital  requisite  to  social  salvation;  and 
that,  if  the  social  hopes  of  the  present  age  are  to  be 
realized,  a  revival  of  personal  religion  must  sweep 

through  our  civilization. 

Ross  L.  Finney. 

Bloomington,  Illinois, 
August,  1913. 


I 

The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 


The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 

THE  Hebrews  were,  in  many  respects,  a  unique 
people;  and  just  because  they  were  unique  they 
made  an  invaluable  contribution  to  civilization. 
The  respect  in  which  they  were  unique  was  religion, 
and  it  was  their  religion  that  furnished  the  basis  of 
their  contribution  to  the  future.  And  one  of  the 
characteristics  of  their  peculiar  religion  was  that 
they  looked  for  a  golden  age  in  the  future.  The 
Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  and  indeed  all  other  an- 
cient peoples,  thought  of  the  golden  age  as  in  the 
past.  But  this  Hebrew  idea,  that  the  golden  age, 
the  ideal  age,  is  in  the  future,  runs  like  a  golden 
thread  through  all  their  religious  literature,  is  a  de- 
termining fact  in  their  history,  and  is  one  of  the 
most  important  elements  of  their  contribution  to  the 
future. 

That  golden  age  which  they  dreamed  of  in  the 
future  they  called  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Into  that 
ideal  of  the  Kingdom  which  was  to  come  they  gath- 
ered together  all  the  good  things  they  could  conceive 
of.     Devoutly,  reverently,  almost  passionately  they 

9 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 


expected  them  all  to  be  realized  when  the  Kingdom 
of  God  should  be  established  upon  earth.  It  was 
to  be  set  up  with  its  capital  at  Jerusalem.  Its  King 
was  to  be  a  scion  of  the  house  of  David.  All  their 
enemies  were  to  be  expelled,  all  their  social  ills  eradi- 
cated. It  was  to  be  indeed  an  ideal  kingdom  upon 
earth,  a  veritable  religious  Utopia. 

This  message  is  sounded  forth  by  all  their 
prophets.  Not  one  of  them  but  makes  the  Messianic 
Kingdom,  the  Kingdom  of  God,  a  vital  note  in  his 
message  and  uses  it  as  a  motive  in  all  his  preaching. 
It  was  the  goal  of  their  history,  the  inspiration  of 
their  faith,  the  very  center  of  their  theocratic  na- 
tional religion. 

And  this  phrase,  uthe  Kingdom  of  God,"  Jesus 
seized  upon  to  use  as  a  vehicle  for  His  message. 

Every  one  who  lived  in  Jesus'  time  was  familiar 
with  the  term  and  knew  full  well  all  the  hope  that 
was  expressed  in  it.  At  this  time,  perhaps  more  than 
at  any  other  period  of  Hebrew  history,  there  was  a 
passionate  longing  in  the  hearts  of  all  the  people 
for  the  realization  of  the  Kingdom.  With  them  it 
merged  the  enthusiasm  and  earnestness  that  we  feel 
in  both  patriotism  and  religion,  for  religion  was 
always  patriotic  with  the  Jew,  and  patriotism  was 
always  religious.     And  so  the  Kingdom-hope  was 

10 


The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 

the  passion  of  the  age  in  which  Jesus  pronounced 
His  message.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  He  seized 
upon  the  term  to  use  it  as  a  vehicle  for  the  expression 
of  what  He  had  to  teach. 

But  He  differed  from  the  Hebrews  as  to  how 
the  Kingdom  was  to  be  realized.  He  meant  to  in- 
dorse their  belief  that  when  the  Kingdom  should 
come,  all  conceivable  good  things  should  be  realized 
in  the  world,  all  social  and  political  ills  should  be 
at  an  end,  and  the  world  should  be,  indeed,  an  ideal 
place  to  live  in.  All  that  He  intended  to  indorse. 
But  He  took  issue  with  them  as  to  how  the  Kingdom 
of  God  was  to  come.  The  Pharisees  believed  that 
men  could  do  nothing  to  hasten  its  coming,  but  that 
it  would  come  in  God's  good  time,  and  come  be- 
cause He  should  perform  some  wonderful  miracle 
and  set  it  up  upon  earth.  The  Zealots,  on  the  other 
hand,  believed,  to  use  Ben  Franklin's  phrase,  that 
"God  helps  them  that  help  themselves."  They  were 
for  demonstrating  their  fitness  for  the  Kingdom  by 
driving  out  the  Romans ;  and  then  they  believed  the 
Kingdom  of  God  would  be  sent.  But  Jesus  indorsed 
neither  of  these  methods  of  bringing  in  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  He  definitely  repudiated  the  methods  ad- 
vocated by  the  Zealots,  and  gave  little  encourage- 
ment to  the  ideas  that  the  Pharisees  held  as  to  how 

n 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

the  Kingdom  of  God  should  come.  He  said,  to 
paraphrase  His  words,  "Change  your  lives,  be  good 
and  just,  love  God  and  man;  behold,  the  Kingdom  is 
already  among  you;  believe  this  good  news,  and  it 
will  be  here." 

When  we  come  to  understand  the  message  of 
Jesus,  therefore,  we  discern  clearly  that  it  was  not 
only  a  message  of  personal  salvation,  but  a  message 
of  social  salvation  as  well.  He  looked  forward  to 
and  taught  His  disciples  to  pray  for  the  time  when 
the  Kingdom  of  God  should  come,  the  will  of  God 
be  done  upon  earth  as  it  is  done  in  heaven,  and  the 
whole  world  should  become  a  veritable  heaven  upon 
earth.  He  taught  His  disciples  that  this  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  was  to  grow  like  the  seed  of  a  plant, 
till  it  should  shelter  the  whole  earth.  He  taught 
His  disciples  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  like 
yeast  put  into  the  world,  that  ultimately  it  may 
leaven  the  whole  lump.  This  was  the  sublimest 
Utopian  dream  of  all  the  ages;  and  in  His  devotion 
to  this  dream,  this  social  ideal,  He  was  willing  to  die 
rather  than  retract  one  word  of  His  program,  one 
iota  of  the  means  for  realizing  it.  Thus  He  voiced 
more  clearly  than  any  other  of  the  Hebrews  this 
hope  that  the  world  is  gradually  to  grow  better  and 
better  until  it  approximates  the  ideal  condition. 

12 


The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 

His  disciples  adopted  His  view  as  a  matter  of 
course,  but  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  they  ap- 
preciated its  full  significance.  There  seems  to  be 
some  indication  in  the  New  Testament  that,  owing 
to  some  extent  to  the  influence  of  the  Pharisees,  they 
expected  it  to  come  in  some  sort  of  marvelous  mani- 
festation. And  Paul,  it  is  certain,  looked  for  an 
apocalyptic  Kingdom  when,  at  the  recoming  of  Je- 
sus, amidst  a  miraculous  display  in  the  heavens 
above  and  the  earth  beneath,  the  world  should  come 
to  an  end  and  a  new  age  should  dawn.  The  early 
Christians,  moreover,  were  actuated  in  a  great  de- 
gree by  this  expectation  of  the  world's  betterment 
or  the  world's  end;  and  the  early  literature  is  full 
of  it.  But  little  by  little  it  faded  away  as  a  social 
ideal,  becoming  only  a  millennial  dream.  Pagan 
practices  were  decaying  and  decomposing  the  insti- 
tutions of  the  time.  Civilization  was  hopelessly  de- 
cadent, and  after  a  century  or  two  Christians  came 
to  despair  of  transforming  and  transfiguring  the 
world  that  now  is.  And  then,  too,  the  philosophy 
of  Plato,  which  little  by  little  had  been  woven  into 
theology,  withdrew  Christian  life  and  hope  from 
the  world,  instead  of  trying  to  save  it.  And  so  it 
came  about  that  Christians  set  up  their  monasteries, 
lived  their  Christian  lives  apart  from  the  world,  re- 

13 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

signed  themselves  to  the  decay  and  decadence  of  the 
age,  and  comforted  themselves  with  the  hope  only 
of  their  own  personal  salvation  in  the  spiritual  world 
beyond  the  grave,  and  with  the  dream  of  a  distant 
millennium.  Thus  social  Christianity  was  forgotten, 
and  only  the  immortal  hope  and  the  millennial 
dream  remained.  The  Kingdom-hope  lay  crushed 
under  the  debris  of  Roman  civilization,  smothered 
in  the  abstractions  of  a  Platonized  theology.  True, 
there  were  those  in  all  ages  in  whose  hearts  burned 
the  desire  to  make  the  world  better,  and  instinctively 
individuals  and  the  Church  felt  its  irrepressible  mo- 
tivation at  times ;  but  so  far  as  its  explicit  expression 
in  the  creeds  or  its  overt  avowal  as  a  Christian 
motive  are  concerned,  it  lay  buried  for  centuries. 

It  is  only  recently,  in  the  closing  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  and  in  the  beginning  years  of  the 
twentieth  century,  that  the  full  gospel,  in  both  its 
aspects,  the  individual  and  the  social,  is  being  set 
forth  again,  to  the  inspiration  of  men's  souls.  The 
slogan  "Back  to  Jesus"  is  restoring  it  to  us,  or  rather 
is  an  expression  of  its  restoration  to  us.  The  King- 
dom-hope is  here  among  us  again  in  all  its  early 
Christian  grandeur,  inspiring  the  souls  of  our  youth 
as  they  could  be  inspired  in  this  age  by  no  other 
motive  whatsoever. 


The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 

There  are  various  reasons  why  it  is  revived  in 
this  twentieth  century.  In  the  first  place  it  is  due 
to  the  rise  of  democracy.  Aristotle  taught  that  the 
lower  classes  are  as  much  below  the  higher  classes 
of  men  as  the  brutes  are  below  human  beings.  But 
Jesus  taught  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Nevertheless 
the  world  believed  Aristotle  rather  than  Jesus  for 
many  sad  and  dreary  centuries,  until  Rousseau  pro- 
claimed the  principle  that  "all  men  are  created  free 
and  equal,  and  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  cer- 
tain inalienable  rights,  among  which  are  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  The  insight  of  this 
great  idea  threw  all  Europe  into  political  ferment, 
set  in  motion  movements  of  modern  democracy  in 
Europe  and  America,  and  got  itself  cast  in  the  form 
just  quoted  in  our  great  National  document.  And 
so  democracy  has  emphasized  the  fact,  as  it  was  not 
emphasized  for  centuries,  that  the  brotherhood  of 
man  is  true  and  that  Christian  principles  ought  to 
reign  in  the  realm  of  government,  and  therefore 
must  reign  and  shall  reign.  Democracy  has  taught 
us  that  ua  man's  a  man  for  a'  that;"  that  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  as  taught  by  Jesus,  is  to  fill 
the  earth,  and  that  the  kingdoms  of  this  earth  are 
to  become  the  Kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  His  Christ. 

Within  the  last  few  years  the  Christian  Church 

15 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

itself  has  caught  the  inspiration  from  rising  democ- 
racy and  is  voicing  forth  the  message  of  humanity. 
The  change  has  come  about  in  this  way.  In  the 
eighties  Tolstoi  startled  Western  civilization  with 
the  assertion  that  our  institutions  are  based  upon 
force  and  retaliation  rather  than  upon  love  and  for- 
giveness. He  challenged  us,  therefore,  to  Christian- 
ize our  institutions.  That  set  the  world  to  inquir- 
ing, as  it  had  never  inquired  before,  what  the  appli- 
cation of  Christianity  to  our  institutions — political, 
social,  and  industrial — might  mean.  Then  Ruskin 
voiced  a  similar  message,  and  the  world  listened  to 
both  of  these  great  literary  prophets  of  social  re- 
ligion. 

About  twenty  years  ago,  perhaps  a  little  more, 
there  began  to  appear  in  America  a  series  of  books 
of  great  religious  significance.  The  first  of  these 
was  "Applied  Christianity,"  by  Washington  Glad- 
den. He  called  for  the  application  of  the  golden 
rule  to  the  labor  problem.  In  the  nineties  other 
books  appeared.  The  first  of  these  was  a  book  by 
Professor  Ely,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  on 
the  "Social  Aspects  of  Christianity."  In  this  book, 
which,  by  the  way,  was  prescribed  for  the  required 
reading  of  young  ministers  of  a  great  denomination, 
Professor  Ely  applied  the  principles  of  Christianity 

16 


The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 

not  only  to  the  labor  problem,  but  to  various  other 
problems  of  our  economic  life.  How  that  book  set 
the  young  ministers  of  America  to  thinking  as  to 
what  Christianity  means  to  the  world  as  well  as  to 
the  individual !  Next  came  Peabody's  "Jesus  Christ 
and  the  Social  Question"  and  Shailer  Mathews' 
"The  Social  Teachings  of  Jesus."  There  is  hardly 
a  clergyman  in  America  who  has  not  read  some  one 
of  these  books.  But  the  book  of  all  books  that 
startled  the  clergy  is  the  one  by  Rauschenbusch,  pub- 
lished in  1907,  entitled,  "Christianity  and  the  Social 
Crisis."  Young  ministers  of  America  read  the  book 
with  pulsing  hearts,  so  intense  was  the  excitement 
of  their  inspiration  as  they  saw  what  Christianity 
might  do  for  this  old  world  if  it  were  but  freed  from 
the  handicaps  of  dogmatism  and  ecclesiasticism,  and 
set  free  to  exert  its  influence  upon  the  institutions  of 
life  and  society. 

Thus  the  clergy  have  been  awakened,  and  they 
in  turn  have  awakened  the  laity.  As  a  result  the 
thought  of  Christians  is  aflame  with  these  prophetic 
messages,  and  the  social  application  of  Christianity 
has  become  almost  a  passion. 

But  this  passion  is  to  be  found  not  only  in  the 
hearts  and  souls  of  the  clergy  and  those  who  listen 
to  the  clergy,  but  it  appears  also  in  many  contempo- 
2  ij 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 


raneous  phases  of  our  National  life.  There  never 
was  a  time  in  all  the  history  of  the  world  when  there 
were  being  so  many  enterprises  and  institutions  in- 
augurated for  the  benefit  of  humanity,  for  the  amel- 
ioration of  the  conditions  of  human  life,  as  to-day. 
Any  man  or  woman  who  remembers  back  as  far  as 
the  Civil  War  could  make  a  list  of  not  less  than  one 
hundred  institutions,  organizations,  and  enterprises 
that  have  been  started  since  then  for  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  bettering  the  world  and  benefiting  humanity, 
increasing  justice,  and  ameliorating  the  conditions  of 
mankind. 

The  development  of  the  sciences  of  Economics 
and  Sociology,  moreover,  and  the  activities  of  phi- 
lanthropy at  the  dictate  of  these  sciences,  is  a  mani- 
festation of  the  passion  engendered  in  the  minds  of 
all  the  people  by  the  Kingdom-hope.  There  are 
thousands  of  young  men  who  have  gone  into  these 
lines  of  study,  research,  and  work,  instead  of  into 
the  ministry,  but  have  gone  into  them  with  precisely 
the  same  spirit  as  their  fathers  went  into  the  min- 
istry. And  there  are  thousands  of  men  who  have 
never  thought  of  the  ministry  as  a  profession  who 
with  a  noble  enthusiasm  are  devoting  their  lives  to 
these  different  forms  of  activity  for  the  betterment 
of  humanity  and  the  uplift  of  mankind.     The  pas- 

18 


The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 

sion  even  threatens  to  sweep  over  into  the  field  of 
politics,  and  we  have  the  spectacle  of  uSocial  Jus- 
tice," a  new  term  coined  to  express  this  humanita- 
rian spirit  of  the  age,  becoming  the  campaign  slogan 
of  a  great  political  party. 

The  spirit  of  the  age,  then,  is  Christian,  in  this 
sense,  at  least.  Men's  religious  fervor  is  moved 
by  this  great  desire,  this  exalted  purpose  of  making 
the  world  better.  All  men  are  praying,  "Thy  King- 
dom come;  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven."  Some  of  them,  perhaps,  may  not  realize 
that  their  work  for  human  betterment  is  Christian, 
that  their  aspirations  and  their  ambitions  are  Chris- 
tian, however  Christian  they  may  be.  Would  it  not 
be  well  to  let  them  understand  that  their  work  is  a 
contribution  to  the  Kingdom  of  God  upon  earth, 
and  that  their  lives  are  really  Christian  in  their  ac- 
tivities and  motives?  Why  should  not  a  class  of 
students,  studying  the  great  problems  of  modern 
life — problems  the  solution  of  which  will  bring  to 
the  world  a  larger  measure  of  justice,  enlarge  the 
opportunities  of  childhood,  widen  the  outlook  of 
womanhood,  and  bless  the  world — why  should  they 
not  come  to  such  a  classroom  with  as  religious  an 
enthusiasm  as  they  come  to  the  prayer-meeting? 
And  is  it  unfitting  that  after  a  course  devoted  to 

19 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 


the  study  of  such  subjects  as  Poverty,  its  causes  and 
cure;  Crime,  the  forces  that  generate  it;  the  Labor 
Movement,  and  the  justice  and  injustice  involved  in 
it;  the  Trust  Problem,  and  the  burden  that  is  un- 
justly laid  upon  the  shoulders  of  so  large  a  propor- 
tion of  our  population,  they  should  reverently  thank 
God  that  they  have  learned  how  the  keenest  minds 
of  the  age  propose  to  realize  in  larger  measure  the 
Kingdom  of  God  in  the  earth? 

The  Church,  reformers,  students,  philanthro- 
pists, men  of  the  world,  statesmen,  are  all  working 
together  in  this  wonderful  age  of  ours  to  transform 
and  transfigure  the  world.  We  all  come  to  feel  that 
it  is  not  enough  to  save  our  individual  selves  from 
some  hell  that  threatens  us  hereafter;  we  also  want 
to  save  this  old  world  itself  from  the  hell  that  has 
blighted  it  for  centuries,  and  bring  to  actuality  a 
heaven  upon  earth.  The  forces  that  are  operating 
in  this  world  of  ours,  religious  and  otherwise,  mak- 
ing for  this  consummation,  are  powerful  forces  in- 
deed; and  those  who  understand  the  signs  of  the 
times  are  confident  that  we  are  just  upon  the  dawn 
of  a  new  and  larger  era,  when  the  institutions  of 
this  world — political,  social,  and  economic — shall 
be  transformed  so  that  we  shall  in  larger  measure 
at  least  actualize  and  exemplify  the  Golden  Rule. 

20 


The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 

For  there  are  two  kinds  of  justice,  two  kinds  of 
righteousness.  There  are  hand-made  justice  and 
righteousness,  and  there  are  machine-made  justice 
and  righteousness.  In  an  age  like  ours,  when  so 
many  things  are  made  by  machinery,  it  ought  to  be 
easy  for  us  to  discern  that  justice  or  injustice,  right- 
eousness or  unrighteousness,  may  be  machine-made. 
Business  corporations,  municipal  governments,  penal 
institutions,  educational  systems,  public-service  fran- 
chises, legal  precedents,  tariff  schedules,  fiscal  con- 
stitutions, city  slums,  competitive  industry,  and  other 
social,  political,  and  economic  organizations  are  all 
great  machines,  producing  justice  or  injustice. 

It  is  not  enough,  therefore,  that  individuals 
should  do  right;  it  is  also  necessary  that  our  ma- 
chinery of  society  should  be  converted,  and  that  all 
our  institutions  should  either  practice  righteousness 
or  else  cease  to  exist  as  institutions.  We  have  al- 
ready destroyed  the  institution  of  slavery,  because  it 
was  an  institution  that  could  not  possibly  practice 
the  Golden  Rule.  There  may  be  other  institutions 
whose  resignations  we  shall  have  to  insist  upon  ac- 
cepting, because  they,  too,  are  incapable  of  prac- 
ticing the  Golden  Rule.  And  there  are  many  of  our 
institutions  that  we  should  readjust  and  modify  so 
that  they,  as  institutions,  may  practice,  like  good 

21 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

men,  the  Golden  Rule.  This  will  never  be  a  Chris- 
tian world  till  the  institutions  as  well  as  individuals 
practice  justice  and  Christianity.  To  convert  our 
institutions  may  be  said,  therefore,  to  be  the  unique 
Christian  task  of  the  age. 

The  task,  moreover,  appeals  to  the  imagination 
of  our  generation.  Thousands  of  young  Christians, 
though  unmotivated  by  fear  or  hope  of  a  hereafter, 
are  profoundly,  even  passionately,  desirous  of  in- 
vesting their  lives  in  behalf  of  the  coming  Kingdom 
which  their  faith  beholds  afar. 

But  right  here  their  difficulty  begins;  for  they 
do  not  know  what  to  do  in  behalf  of  that  Kingdom. 
They  would  gladly  be  missionaries,  or  slum  workers, 
or  start  a  social  settlement.    They  eagerly  sing, 

"I  '11  go  where  You  want  me  to  go,  dear  Lord, 
Over  mountain,  or  plain,  or  sea;" 

but,  unfortunately,  the  way  is  closed,  and  they  de- 
spair of  ever  being  able  to  serve  the  Kingdom. 

So  we  must  confess  the  Kingdom-hope  is  at  a 
disadvantage  in  being  rather  remote  and  abstract 
for  the  practical  religious  purposes  of  all  the  people. 
We  may  dream  and  exult  ever  so  much  over  a  world 
growing  better,  but  unless  we  can  somehow  bring 
social  service  down  into  close  contact  with  the  de- 

22 


The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 

tails  of  our  lives  and  actually  live  by  it  as  a  motive, 
one  of  two  things  will  happen :  we  shall  either  grow 
discouraged  at  the  futility  of  our  lives,  or  else  we 
shall  abstract  our  religion  from  our  lives,  praying 
and  singing  and  exulting  over  a  Kingdom-dream 
that  we  can  only  dream  about,  while  meantime  our 
daily  lives  are  prayerless,  visionless,  and  godless. 

And  this  danger  seriously  menaces  the  social-sal- 
vation propaganda  of  the  present  day.  We  are  all 
in  danger  of  being  like  the  child  who,  when  asked 
by  his  father  at  family  worship,  "Where  is  our  part 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God?"  glibly  replied,  "Up  in  the 
moon."  Child-labor  legislation,  industrial  accident 
insurance,  social  settlements,  and  amelioration  of  the 
rigors  of  competition  are,  to  most  of  us,  most  of 
the  time,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  up  in  the  moon. 
Unless  we  see  some  closer-at-home  opportunity  to 
serve  the  Kingdom  than  is  offered  by  most  programs 
of  social  reform,  the  Kingdom-motive  will  be  to  us 
little  more  than  an  abstraction.  And  with  many, 
devotion  to  that  abstraction  is  about  all  the  religious 
experience  they  have. 

The  father  just  referred  to,  a  few  mornings  later, 
tried  again.  He  had  intended  to  teach  his  six-year- 
old  son  that  the  Kingdom  is  among  the  good  folks 
that  we  know.     But  this  time  the  child  answered 

23 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

as  promptly  as  before,  with  sweet  accents  of  childish 
sureness,  "Down  in  our  hearts." 

Sure  enough !  Down  in  our  hearts !  The  father 
was  nonplused  for  a  moment;  but  he  presently  dis- 
cerned that  the  child's  innocence  was  wiser  than  his 
wisdom,  and  he  let  the  answer  stand.  Down  in  our 
hearts! 

The  most  important  religious  insight,  the  in- 
sight requisite  to  the  vitality  of  social  religion  and 
the  success  of  our  civilization,  is  the  insight  to  dis- 
cern that  if  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  to  come  in  the 
earth,  it  must  first  come  in  our  hearts.  Social  sal- 
vation can  only  be  realized  through  individual  sal- 
vation. The  social  awakening  must  be  realized  by 
a  revival  of  personal  religion. 

The  truth  still  remains  that  our  institutions  need 
to  be  readjusted  and  reorganized,  but  it  will  do  little 
good  for  our  institutions  to  be  converted  unless  the 
persons  who  compose  them  are  converted  too.  We 
can  not  make  good  institutions  out  of  bad  folks, 
however  perfectly  the  institutions  are  organized; 
and  if  we  are  to  have  good  folks  to  build  into  in- 
stitutions worthy  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  they  must, 
above  all,  have  the  Kingdom  of  God  down  in  their 
hearts.  The  brotherhood  of  man  is  impossible  with- 
out brotherly  men.     A  good  family  is  impossible 

24 


The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 

without  good  folks.  The  principality  of  the  king- 
dom in  which  each  of  us  lives  is  his  own  home,  and 
there  is  no  service  to  the  kingdom  that  begins  to 
compare  in  importance  with  making  that  home  an 
ideal  principality  of  the  Kingdom.  Local  units  are 
as  vital  to  the  Kingdom  as  to  democracy. 

Moreover,  just  as  we  can  not  have  a  good 
family-life  without  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  our 
hearts,  so  we  can  not  have  a  stable  National  life 
without  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  Have  not  we  in  America  had  enough  of 
stealing  and  vulgar,  wanton  selfishness  in  politics? 
Is  it  not  high  time  that  our  bland,  blind  optimism 
be  at  an  end  with  respect  to  this  democracy  of  ours? 
It  has  not  passed  its  experimental  age.  It  is  not 
a  foregone  conclusion  that  democracy  is  a  success  in 
America ;  and  American  democracy  certainly  will  not 
succeed  unless  we  can  get  honest  men  to  run  it. 

No  doubt  the  logic  of  Jesus'  teachings  calls  for 
the  Christianization  of  our  social  institutions.  No 
doubt  we  must  reduce  the  Master's  message  to 
fundamental  principles,  such  as  human  brotherhood, 
and  then  apply  those  principles  not  only  to  persons 
and  intimate  personal  relations,  but  to  institutions 
as  well.  Thus  slavery  as  a  system  was  incom- 
patible with  Jesus'  principles.     So  was  the  divine 

25 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 


right  of  kings.  So  are,  no  doubt,  many  of  the  insti- 
tutions of  to-day.  Let  each  institution  be  subjected 
to  the  test — that  is  the  use  to  which  Christianity  must 
be  put — and  the  world  will  never  be  Christian  other- 
wise. 

Nevertheless  it  is  an  interesting  and,  in  the  light 
of  the  present  social  movement,  a  curious  fact  that 
the  great  Teacher  Himself  never  carried  His  own 
message  that  far.  He  devoted  His  attention  not 
to  institutions,  but  to  individuals.  His  immediate 
interest  was  in  personal  salvation;  the  social  salva- 
tion He  foresaw  as  an  ultimate  result.  For  example, 
an  industrial  system  closely  akin  to  slavery  existed 
in  Palestine  in  Jesus'  day,  and  the  Roman  Empire 
was  full  of  it;  but  there  is  not  one  word  against  the 
system  in  the  Gospels.  A  tyrannous  foreign  power 
unjustly  taxed  and  oppressed  the  people — but  not 
one  word  do  we  read  of  political  revolution.  An 
almost  hopelessly  effete  ecclesiastical  system  pre- 
vailed; but  it  was  the  Pharisees  He  condemned,  not 
their  institution.  The  nearest  He  came  to  prescrib- 
ing for  any  social  organ  was  when  He  declared  so 
unequivocally  for  the  inviolability  of  marriage.  He 
did  not  so  much  as  make  the  slightest  provision  for 
institutionalizing  the  movement  to  which  His  very 
life  was  given. 

26 


The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 

Instead,  He  loved  men  and  women,  served  the 
people,  and  called  individuals  to  repentance,  declar- 
ing that  the  leaven  would  ultimately  leaven  the  whole 
lump.  Love  one  another,  return  good  for  evil,  visit 
the  sick,  feed  the  hungry,  forgive  your  enemies,  trust 
in  God,  turn  from  sin ;  thus  the  Kingdom  is  to  come. 

Let  us  not,  therefore,  forget  the  Master.  In 
our  entirely  commendable  enthusiasm  to  reform,  as 
the  logic  of  His  teaching  demands,  the  un-Christian 
institutions  of  society,  let  us  not  neglect  that  which 
He  so  explicitly  directed,  to  seek  the  salvation  of  our 
own  souls  and  the  souls  of  our  contemporaries,  the 
regeneration  of  our  lives  and  theirs.  For  nothing 
is  more  certain  than  that  "social  organization  can 
never  be  of  a  higher  type  than  the  individual  char- 
acter and  intelligence  of  the  members  of  the  group 
warrant;  and  only  by  raising  the  intelligence  and 
character  of  the  individual  members  of  society  can 
a  higher  type  of  social  life  permanently  result."* 

Moreover,  let  us  remind  ourselves  that  our 
Lord's  appeal  was  essentially  and  superlatively  a 
religious  appeal.  His  means  of  regenerating  char- 
acter was  through  personal  religion.  And  the  re- 
ligion of  Jesus  Christ  that  came  streaming  into  the 
effete  civilization  of  the  first  century,  a  civilization 

*EUwood's  "Sociology  and  Modern  Social  Problems,"  page  3"- 

27 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

sick  to  nausea  with  philosophical  speculation,  and 
world-weary  with  the  burden  of  vice  and  pessimism, 
was  a  personal  religion,  with  a  personal  God,  a  per- 
sonal Savior,  personal  repentance,  love,  faith,  and 
salvation.  And  just  because  it  was  a  personal  re- 
ligion it  created  a  new  force  in  society,  and  generated 
a  new  tendency  in  civilization. 

So  must  it  ever  be.  The  most  effective  means 
of  bringing  the  Kingdom  of  God  into  men's  hearts, 
and  so  bringing  the  world  to  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
is  personal  religion. 

Personal  religion,  because  we  are  individual  per- 
sons, and  after  all  love  does  not  thrive  on  abstrac- 
tions. It  must  tie  us  to  our  housemates  and  our  near 
neighbors  as  well  as  to  society.  Religion,  because 
we  are  religious  persons,  and  faith,  too,  is  not  satis- 
fied with  abstractions;  it  must  show  us  the  way  to 
God  and  save  our  souls  as  well  as  the  social  order. 
Religious  faith  and  love  are  the  sources  from  which 
that  goodness  springs  which  alone  can  save  the 
world.  Psychology  recognizes  that  fact.  Both  edu- 
cational and  social  theory  build  upon  the  principle 
that  religion  motivates  morality  as  nothing  else  can. 
And  we  all  do  know  that  those  praying  fathers  and 
mothers  of  ours,  whose  faith  was  vital,  had  a  sta- 
bility of  moral  character  that  we  shall  fail  to  develop 

28 


The  Social  Ideals  of  the  Christian  Faith 

in  our  children  unless  we  transmit  alive  to  them  our 
fathers'  faith.  And  upon  the  character  of  individu- 
als depends  not  only  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom 
for  which  we  dream,  but  the  very  security  of  the 
social  capital  we  now  possess. 

The  enthusiasms  of  the  social  awakening  are 
spreading  rapidly  and  widely  in  America  to-day. 
And  it  is  well.  Young  men  and  women  are  conse- 
crating themselves  to  the  service  of  the  Kingdom. 
Men  are  selecting  their  life-work  or  devoting  their 
means  and  leisure  to  these  great  ideals.  But  if  they 
are  to  serve  effectively  the  Kingdom  of  the  Christ, 
that  Christ  Himself  must  abide  in  their  hearts.  His 
forgiveness,  His  peace,  His  love  must  fill  them, 
bless  them,  inspire  them,  and  send  them  forth  to 
do  His  will.  For  by  an  irreverent,  sordid,  or  im- 
moral life  they  can  tear  down  more,  much  more, 
than  their  work  or  their  philanthropy  can  possibly 
build  up.  And  withal  they  will  fail  to  really  find 
themselves.  But  with  Christ  the  Savior  in  the  house 
of  their  souls  they  may  become  indeed  servants  in 
the  house  of  the  world. 


29 


II 


The  Social  Effects  of  Individual  Morals 


The  Social   Effects  of  Individual  Morals 

THE  western  religious  world  has  during  the  last 
few  years  been  roused  to  a  pitch  of  exultant 
enthusiasm  over  the  Christian  ideal  of  the  coming 
Kingdom  of  God  upon  the  earth.  This  social  ver- 
sion of  the  Christian  faith  dreams  of  an  ideal  world 
that  is  to  be  gradually  realized.  Justice  is  to  grow; 
the  social  evils  that  discount  the  value  of  life  are  to 
be  gradually  eliminated;  peace,  prosperity,  happi- 
ness, and  good  will  are  ultimately  to  dominate 
human  life.  The  social  order,  gradually  Christian- 
ized, is,  little  by  little,  to  approximate  perfection. 

This  dream  has  aptly  been  called  the  Kingdom- 
hope.  The  means  by  which  it  is  to  be  realized  are 
changes  in  laws  and  institutions  whereby  such  con- 
crete evils  as  child-labor,  the  toil  of  women  in  fac- 
tories, the  social  evil,  industrial  accidents,  and  other 
like  monstrosities  are  to  be  done  away.  In  short, 
social  reorganization.  The  Christian  who  enter- 
tains this  hope  and  aspires  to  help  in  its  realization 
thinks  of  some  form  of  social  service,  such  as  slum- 
work,  prison-reform,  or  philanthropy,  as  the  imme- 
3  33 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

diate  program  in  which  he  himself,  if  he  could  but 
participate,  might  help  in  the  realization  of  the  com- 
ing Kingdom.  The  Church,  under  the  inspiration  of 
this  ideal,  is  itself  agitating  and  undertaking  various 
forms  of  social  service.  All  sorts  of  social  reforms 
are  being  suggested,  and  agitators  abound.  At  the 
heart  of  the  modern  social  aspiration  is  the  demand 
for  a  more  equitable  distribution  of  wealth.  It  is 
everywhere  felt  and  frankly  avowed  that  this  is  pre- 
requisite to  all  of  the  other  parts  of  the  social  pro- 
gram, and  many  believe  that  all  the  other  ideal  con- 
ditions will  follow  as  an  inevitable  consequence  if 
only  an  equitable  distribution  of  wealth  can  be  se- 
cured. 

But  it  may  be  well  to  raise  the  question  whether 
a  materialistic  and  external  program  of  this  char- 
acter can  reach  the  heart  of  the  matter.  For  man 
is  not  merely  external;  there  is  also  the  internal 
aspect  of  his  nature.  His  environment  is  not  merely 
a  material  world,  it  is  also  a  social  world  and  a 
world  of  ideals.  It  has  been  aptly  said:  "Our  ma- 
terial progress  can  never  add  anything  to  the  real 
happiness  and  social  betterment  of  the  race.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  possible  to  conceive  of  a  society  in 
which  every  one  has  an  economic  surplus — a  society 
rolling  in  wealth,  approximately  equally  divided,  and 

34 


The  Social  Effects  of  Individual  Morals 

yet  one  in  which  human  misery  in  its  worst  forms 
of  vice,  crime,  self-destruction,  and  pessimism  pre- 
vail." Something  else  is  necessary  besides  social 
reorganization,  however  important  this  may  be  in 
itself. 

To  imagine  that  these  external  changes  alone 
can  give  us  a  perfect  world  constitutes  us  dreamers 
like  those  of  the  Renaissance  period,  who  vainly 
imagined  that  familiarity  with  the  ancient  classics 
and  insight  into  ultimate  metaphysical  mysteries 
could  actualize  a  Utopian  world.  But  the  dreams 
of  the  Renaissance  failed  tragically  of  realization, 
and  from  these  dreamers  of  an  earlier  day  we  may 
well  learn  a  lesson.  An  ideal  world  can  only  be 
realized  in  proportion  to  the  morality  and  intelli- 
gence of  the  masses  of  the  common  people.  What 
we  need  to-day  is  not  only  to  reorganize  our  insti- 
tutions on  more  moral  lines,  but  also  a  deepening 
of  the  moral  life  of  individuals.  The  greatest  need 
of  the  age,  and  the  most  important  requisite  to  the 
realization  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  upon  earth,  is 
the  moral  insight  to  discern  the  social  consequence 
of  individual  morals  and  a  corresponding  revival  of 
personal  moral  earnestness.  He  who  aspires  to 
devote  his  life  to  the  service  of  the  Kingdom  should, 
above  all  things,  perceive  clearly  that  nothing  he 

35 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

can  say  or  do  can  possibly  contribute  more  than  the 
integrity  and  uprightness  of  his  own  life. 

In  order  to  a  clearer  insight  into  the  social  con- 
sequences of  personal  morality,  consider  the  three 
vices :  licentiousness,  gambling,  and  drunkenness. 
The  immediate  effects  of  the  first  are  diseased 
bodies,  broken  homes,  disgraced  parents,  outraged 
offspring,  ruined  lives,  and  the  mental  anguish  of 
shame  and  despair.  As  for  the  second,  think  of  the 
worthless,  wasted  lives  of  young  men,  and  of  the 
fathers  whose  gray  hairs  have  been  brought  down 
in  sorrow  to  the  grave.  Intemperance  has  made  us 
so  familiar  with  its  harvest  of  horrors  that  we  are 
calloused  to  them  and  contemplate  them  with  an 
almost  fatalistic  hopelessness  and  indifference.  The 
trail  of  poverty,  suffering,  heartbreak,  and  death 
which  this  vice  has  left  in  its  train  is  almost  equiva- 
lent to  perpetual  war. 

But  these  vices  have  not  only  their  direct  and 
immediate  social  consequences,  they  have  their  in- 
direct effects  as  well.  For  in  a  complex  society  like 
ours  they  have  assumed  commercialized  forms. 
Everywhere  they  have  organized  to  corrupt  the  offi- 
cers of  the  law  in  order  to  secure  their  own  protec- 
tion. One  of  the  most  shameful  chapters  in  the 
story  of  our  cities'  shame  is  the  complicity  of  law 

36 


The  Social  Effects  of  Individual  Morals 

officers  with  the  organized  interests  of  vice.  Offi- 
cers whose  sworn  duty  it  is  to  protect  the  people 
from  the  underworld  have  often  protected  the  un- 
derworld from  the  people.  Not  only  so,  but  by  an 
alliance  with  public-service  corporations  they  and 
the  vice  interests  together  have  been  able  abso- 
lutely to  control  the  governments  of  many  of  our 
American  cities.  Thus  vice  has  often  rendered  mu- 
nicipal democracy  a  failure,  temporarily,  at  least, 
has  prostituted  popular  government  to  its  own  uses, 
and  raised  the  question  whether  or  not  democracy 
can  succeed  in  America.  Delos  F.  Wilcox  asserts 
that  vice  is  the  chief  enemy  of  democracy. 

Imagine,  now,  a  society  in  which  these  vices  and 
their  consequences  have  been  pushed  to  their  logical 
conclusion;  a  society,  in  other  words,  in  which  they 
are  universal.  A  more  veritable  hell  upon  earth  can 
not  be  imagined.  On  the  other  hand,  conceive  a 
society  from  which  these  vices  have  been  entirely 
eliminated  (and  this,  by  the  way,  is  as  conceivable 
as  a  society  in  which  an  equitable  distribution  of 
wealth  has  been  attained),  and  you  have  conceived 
a  society  that  has  made  tremendous  strides  toward 
the  realization  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

How  evident  it  is,  therefore,  that  the  individual 
who  contributes  to  the  prevalence  of  these  vices  in 

37 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

society  is  a  tearer-down,  a  destroyer,  a  veritable 
traitor  to  the  common  good!  How  evident,  too, 
that  he  whose  life  is  immune  from  these  moral  dis- 
eases is  making  a  large  contribution  to  the  welfare 
of  society!  How  much  social  service,  how  much 
of  the  work  of  the  reformer  or  philanthropist  would 
it  require,  forsooth,  to  cancel  the  damage  that  nat- 
urally and  inevitably  accrues  from  a  vicious  life? 

Again,  in  order  that  the  social  consequence  of 
personal  morality  may  be  more  clearly  discerned, 
let  us  consider  what  morality  is  in  itself. 

It  is  fundamentally  a  social  device.  It  is  the 
indispensable  basis  of  the  social  order.  It  is  by 
society  that  moral  standards  have  been  set  up  as 
the  result  of  the  race's  experience.  The  things  that 
we  call  right  are  the  things  that  the  race  has  demon- 
strated to  be  conservative  of  the  general  welfare. 
The  essential  reason  for  the  moral  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  not  primarily  to  secure  his  own  happiness, 
but  to  make  possible  successful  social  relations. 
Courage,  for  instance,  the  virtue  of  war,  has  as  its 
function  the  security  of  the  group  and  the  triumph 
of  the  national  cause.  The  object  of  business  in- 
tegrity is  to  make  business  organization  and  activity 
possible.     In  countries  where  business  integrity  is 

38 


The  Social  Effects  of  Individual  Morals 


at  a  low  ebb,  credit  and  the  complexer  forms  of 
commercial  organization  are  an  impossibility. 
Truthfulness,  likewise,  is  a  device  by  means  of  which 
we  are  able  to  live  together.  So  are  all  the  virtues. 
It  is  true  that  society  usually  rewards  the  virtuous 
man.  But,  moreover,  because  of  the  social  law  of 
survival  and  the  spiritual  nature  of  man,  the  vir- 
tuous man  is,  in  the  long  run,  the  happiest  man. 
Nevertheless,  if  the  welfare  of  society  requires  it, 
the  ultimate  sacrifice  may  be  required  from  the  in- 
dividual. 

Only  a  socio-central  ethical  theory,  therefore, 
can  stand  the  test  of  logic  and  human  history. 

The  same  truth  may  be  stated  conversely  and 
concretely  by  pointing  out  the  fact  that  one  immoral 
person  can  ruin  a  family,  one  rascal  can  bankrupt 
a  firm,  a  single  traitor  can  lose  a  battle,  a  few  rogues 
can  spoil  a  community.  Likewise  a  sufficient  pro- 
portion of  immoral  people  can  debauch  a  nation  and 
undermine  a  civilization. 

In  society  the  paths  of  individual  interests  cross 
and  recross,  but  the  individuals  must  not  clash. 
Friction  and  collisions  must  be  prevented,  and  slight 
irritations  must  be  soothed.  Ambitious,  grasping, 
passionate,  conniving  human  nature,  bent  on  getting 


39 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

what  it  wants  without  regard  to  the  rights  of  others, 
must  be  directed,  restrained,  or  suppressed  in  the 
interests  of  the  greater  number.  Those  animal  in- 
stincts which  the  struggle  for  existence  among  the 
lower  orders  necessarily  augmented  are,  many  of 
them,  still  necessary  to  the  survival  of  the  human 
species.  However,  they  must  be  guided,  curbed,  re- 
strained, controlled.  Otherwise  human  life  could 
never  rise  above  brute  level.  To  this  end  the  thou- 
shalts  and  the  thou-shalt-nots  of  the  moral  law  are 
absolutely  requisite.  And  this  is  almost  their  total 
function. 

Individual  morality  is,  therefore,  the  most  fun- 
damental thing  in  society.  It  is  the  mechanical  de- 
sign by  means  of  which  part  fits  part  and  wheel 
mashes  into  wheel  in  this  great  social  machine.  It 
is  the  plan  that  transforms  the  mob  into  the  Mace- 
donian phalanx,  and  brings  social  order  out  of  in- 
dividual chaos.  The  ancient  virtues  are,  therefore, 
more  valuable  to  us  than  modern  inventions.  We 
might  better  fail  to  secure  our  share  of  the  world's 
trade  than  fail  in  the  application  of  the  moral  law. 
It  were  better  to  let  our  children  grow  up  in  igno- 
rance than  to  bring  them  up  in  schools  where  their 
moral  fiber  is  disintegrated.  We  might  better  dis- 
pense with  the  telephone  and  the  telegraph,  be  de- 

40 


The  Social  Effects  of  Individual  Morals 


prived  of  our  modern  transportation  systems,  and 
go  back  to  the  wheelbarrow  and  the  ox-cart  than 
to  be  deprived  of  the  moral  law  which  has  stood 
the  test  of  centuries,  for  without  it  society  could 
not  exist  at  all. 

Such  considerations  as  these  should  make  it  clear 
how  much  damage  can  be  done  by  a  single  cog-wheel 
in  the  social  machine  which  does  not  fit  its  place,  by 
a  single  individual  whose  life  is  immoral.  He  is  a 
destroyer  and  an  iconoclast.  He  disintegrates  and 
tears  to  pieces  the  social  fabric.  He  is  an  undesir- 
able citizen.  If  there  were  none  but  such  as  he, 
civilization  would  be  impossible,  and  the  Kingdom- 
hope  could  never  even  have  been  conceived.  But 
the  person  whose  life  is  straight,  whose  deeds  are 
good,  whose  morality  conserves  the  social  fabric 
and  contributes  to  the  moral  progress  of  the  world, 
should  understand  that  his  service  to  the  coming 
Kingdom,  for  which  he  prays,  is  no  mean  service. 
Let  him  in  this  find  inspiration. 

But  there  is  a  higher  level  than  the  mere  absti- 
nence from  positive  vice.  There  are  higher  virtues. 
From  the  consideration  of  the  infringement  of  posi- 
tive laws  let  us  proceed,  therefore,  to  those  senti- 
ments and  feelings  upon  which  the  gospel  places  its 
emphasis  as  the  great  moral  desiderata  of  life — 

4i 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

sentiments  of  sympathy,  love,  and  good  will.  By 
so  doing  we  shall  be  able  to  see  that  the  person 
who  lives  on  this  high  Christian  plane  makes  a  posi- 
tive contribution  as  great  as  is  the  negative  damage 
wrought  by  the  vicious  individual. 

For  these  sentiments  are  not  merely  sentiments, 
they  are  instincts.  They  are  instincts,  morever, 
which  lie  at  the  very  basis  of  society.  Professor 
Ross  points  out  that  the  contribution  of  human  na- 
ture itself  to  the  social  order  consists  principally  in 
the  instincts  of  sympathy  and  the  sense  of  justice. 
Without  these  constituent  elements  of  the  psychic 
endowment  of  man,  society  could  never  have  begun 
at  all;  and  the  moral  progress  of  society  is  to  be 
precisely  in  proportion  as  these  instincts  triumph 
over  the  anti-social  instincts  of  human  nature.  The 
more  there  are  of  these  sentiments  the  nearer  will 
the  Kingdom  of  God  be  at  hand.  And  precisely  this 
is  the  core  of  Jesus'  social  message.  He  seized  upon 
the  socializing  instincts  of  man  and  sought  to  aug- 
ment them.  The  real  Christian  is  the  person  whose 
habituated  interests  cluster  around  these  instincts. 
He  gets  his  joy  of  life  from  them  rather  than  from 
the  anti-social  and  animal  interests  of  life.  In  a 
world  full  of  real  Christians  who  have  developed 

42 


The  Social  Effects  of  Individual  Morals 

these  higher  and  more  social  interests,  justice  will 
thrive,  mutual  help  and  kindness  will  abound,  and 
loyalty  to  the  causes  of  humanity  and  the  cry  of 
human  need  will  never  go  unheard. 

Imagine  a  world  in  which  there  are  no  hearts 
imbued  with  the  Christian — or  shall  we  say  natural? 
— sentiments  of  sympathy,  good  will,  and  love. 
How  dark  and  cold  and  unlivable,  indeed,  such  a 
world  would  be  !  Byron's  picture  of  darkness  might 
well  be  applicable  to  such  a  world.  And  he  who 
permits  those  sentiments  to  die  out  of  his  soul  is 
helping  to  make  the  world  such  a  world  as  that.  In 
such  a  world  social  justice  would  never  be  dreamed 
of,  and  the  reorganization  and  Christianization  of 
the  social  order  would  be  an  unheard-of  formula, 
and  there  could  be  no  Kingdom-hope. 

Fancy,  on  the  other  hand,  a  world  in  which  every 
individual  soul  is  filled  with  love  of  man,  sympathy, 
kindness,  and  good  will  abounding  in  every  heart. 
That  would  be  a  world  in  which  the  Kingdom  of 
God  had  been  attained.  The  brotherhood  of  man 
would  no  longer  be  a  hope,  but  an  actualized  re- 
ality, for  it  would  be  a  world  full  of  brotherly  men. 
In  a  world  like  that  social  institutions  could  not  long 
remain  unjust. 

43 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

It  is  not  intended  by  these  remarks  to  cast  one 
iota  of  disparagement  upon  the  social  application 
of  Christianity.  The  social  temper  is  a  grand  new 
passion.  It  is  only  intended  to  domesticate  it  and 
utilize  it.  For  most  of  us  must  live  at  home;  our 
world  is  a  little  world;  our  contacts,  for  the  most 
part,  are  with  individuals  and  are  personal  contacts. 
We  have  no  opportunity,  most  of  us,  to  make  ap- 
preciable contributions  to  public  reforms.  Never- 
theless we  all  ought  to  realize  that  we  can  help. 
And  the  help  that  we  can  render  is  a  most  valuable 
kind,  for  the  moral  fiber  of  the  mass  of  common 
people  is  absolutely  prerequisite  to  the  realization 
of  the  reforms  that  are  on  the  contemporaneous 
docket.  The  sculptor  can  not  mold  or  polish  slacked 
lime.  It  is  only  the  hardest  marble  that  will  take 
and  hold  the  forms  of  beauty  that  his  artist  soul 
conceives,  and  receive  the  polish  that  will  reflect  the 
glorious  light  of  the  sun. 

Let  us,  therefore,  reconsecrate  our  lives  to  God 
and  the  service  of  the  Kingdom.  Let  us  begin  every 
new  day  with  the  devout  prayer  that  that  day  may 
be  a  day  of  upright  devotion  to  the  duties  and  re- 
sponsibilities of  our  task  and  station.  And  let  us 
pray,  moreover,  that  the  God  who  was  the  God  of 

44 


The  Social  Effects  of  Individual  Morals 

social  evolution  through  the  centuries  of  the  past, 
and  who  from  time  to  time  has  sent  an  Amos  or 
an  Isaiah,  a  Savonarola  or  an  Erasmus,  a  Wesley 
or  a  Booth,  may  send  to  America,  during  this  gen- 
eration, a  prophet  whose  message  shall  reach  the 
ears  of  all  our  people  and  inspire  them  to  lives  of 
firm  and  stable  morality. 


45 


Ill 

Social  Christianity  Begins  at  Home 


Social  Christianity  Begins  at  Home 

THE  Kingdom  of  God  begins  at  home.  The 
most  important  service  that  any  Christian  can 
render  to  the  Kingdom  of  God  upon  earth  is  to 
make  his  own  home  an  ideal  principality  of  that 
Kingdom.  For  here  is  a  social  institution,  the 
family,  which  needs  no  reconstruction.  Its  organi- 
zation is  already  on  perfect  lines.  The  monoga- 
mous family  is  the  perfect  family  type.  What  it 
needs  to  make  it  a  social  success  is  the  right  kind 
of  folks  to  constitute  it.  So  far  as  the  family  is 
concerned,  therefore,  the  social  application  of  the 
gospel  depends  upon  the  moral  regeneration  of  in- 
dividuals; and  there  is  no  social  aspect  of  Chris- 
tianity that  begins  to  compare  in  importance  with 
this.  Moreover,  here  is  an  immediate,  right-at-hand 
opportunity  for  each  of  us  to  make  a  social  contri- 
bution. 

In  order  to  make  clear  the  Christian's  social  duty 
with  respect  to  this  institution,  it  may  be  well  to 
consider  how  basic  a  social  institution  it  is. 

The  Bible  records  in  its  earliest  chapters  the 
4  49 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

Hebrew  conception  of  the  origin  of  the  family,  and 
St.  Paul  emphasizes  the  fundamental  character  of 
the  institution.  As  for  Jesus,  there  is  no  specific  sub- 
ject on  which  he  speaks  more  explicitly  than  on  the 
inviolability  of  the  monogamous  family  relation. 
Professor  Peatfody  has  pointed  out  that  his  in- 
sistence was  even  more  stringent  than  we  are  wont 
to  interpret  it.  His  presence  at  the  wedding  in 
Cana  of  Galilee  is  an  incidental  testimony  as  to  his 
conception  of  marriage  which  we  all  refer  to  with 
pleasure,  even  though  its  significance  may  not  be 
great.  As  has  been  pointed  out  in  another  place, 
this  institution  is  the  only  one  for  whose  plan  of 
organization  the  Great  Teacher  took  pains  to  pre- 
scribe. 

History  also  gives  abundant  testimony  to  the  sa- 
credness  of  this  institution,  for  it  shows  us  that, 
although  other  forms  of  the  family  have  existed  at 
various  times  and  places,  no  other  form  has  been 
able  tp  conserve  as  high  a  type  of  civilization  as  the 
monogamous  form,  and  in  fact  the  struggle  for  ex- 
istence has  all  but  eliminated  these  other  forms. 
Moreover,  history  has  furnished  repeated  instances 
of  the  fact  that  when  the  pure  family-life  has  been 
seriously  broken  down,  civilization  has  broken  down 
with  it.    The  case  of  Rome  is  a  no  less  serious  warn- 

50 


Social  Christianity  Begins  at  Home 

ing  in  this  respect  because  reference  to  it  has  be- 
come so  trite. 

Turning  from  history,  we  find  science  furnished 
with  abundant  evidence  that  promiscuity  causes  ste- 
rility, not  only  by  reason  of  the  diseases  that  it  gives 
rise  to,  but  for  other  reasons  perhaps  not  fully  un- 
derstood. This  fact  makes  it  evident  to  those  who 
have  looked  closely  into  the  matter  that  promiscuity 
must  lead  ultimately  to  the  elimination  of  the  race 
that  practices  it.  As  to  the  diseases  just  referred 
to,  it  is  doubtful  whether  there  is  any  force  at  work 
among  the  American  people  that  menaces  more 
seriously  their  perpetuity.  The  very  antiquity  of 
the  monogamous  family,  moreover,  is  one  of  the 
strongest  evidences  of  its  validity.  Westermarck 
and  others,  who  have  made  extensive  investigations 
among  primitive  peoples,  assert  that  the  permanent 
union  of  one  man  with  one  woman  is  an  almost  uni- 
versal rule  except  where  the  morals  of  the  native 
peoples  have  been  corrupted  by  foreigners.  Some 
have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  assert  with  consider- 
able show  of  data  that  a  stable  monogamous  family 
very  frequently  obtains  among  anthropoid  apes.  If 
this  be  true  it  would  go  to  show  that  this  type  of 
union  is  older  than  the  human  race  itself,  bred  in 
our  very  bone,  as  it  were,  so  that  nature  may  not 

51 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

tolerate  its  violation  without  serious  biological  re- 
taliation. 

These  facts  give  us  a  point  of  view  for  a  clear 
appreciation  of  the  far-reaching  social  destructive- 
ness  of  sexual  vices  and  divorce.  Together  they 
mean  the  perpetuation  of  the  diseases  they  engender, 
with  their  consequent  poverty  and  crime.  Their 
prevalence  among  us  would  be  an  incontrovertible 
sign  of  decay  if  permitted  to  continue  and  thrive. 
They  would  mean  the  inevitable  collapse  of  our 
civilization  and  the  extinction  of  our  race.  The  se- 
riousness of  this  menace  as  it  exists  in  America  to- 
day has  frequently  been  pointed  out,  and  it  can  not 
be  overestimated. 

The  causes  are  doubtless  many  and  varied.  No 
doubt  it  is  true  that  economic  pressure,  and  the  so- 
cial maladjustments  resulting,  often  do  give  rise 
both  to  vice  and  to  divorce.  But  the  frequent  pro- 
test that  we  have  recently  heard  from  the  pens  of 
young  women  of  the  class  from  which  the  victims 
of  commercialized  vice  are  said  to  be  most  fre- 
quently recruited  indicate  very  clearly  that  these 
causes  do  not  undermine  the  virtue  of  those  who 
are  possessed  of  a  staunch  philosophy  of  life.  Pro- 
fessor Peabody  remarks  very  succinctly  that  not  a 
hard  life  but  a  soft  creed  is  the  cause  of  divorce, 

52 


Social  Christianity  Begins  at  Home 

and  no  doubt  there  is  a  large  measure  of  truth  in 
his  remark.  Human  nature  being  as  it  is,  we  may 
never,  of  course,  ignore  the  economic  and  social 
forces  as  causes  of  vice  and  divorce.  Still  it  may 
always  be  validly  contended  that  low  ideals  and 
flabby  moral  fiber  must  always  be  reckoned  with. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  dry  rot  that  is  eating 
at  the  very  vitals  of  our  family-life  in  America  is 
exaggerated  individualism.  This  is  a  philosophy 
of  life  consciously  or  subconsciously  held  which  be- 
lieves that  the  vital  end  and  highest  good  of  life  is 
pleasure.  All  laws  are  appraised  with  respect  to 
their  capacity  of  contributing  thereto.  The  respon- 
sibilities which  the  individual  owes  to  society  and  its 
members  are  largely  ignored,  and  duty  is  a  small 
word  in  the  vocabulary  of  such  persons.  This  phi- 
losophy inevitably  undermines  all  social  institutions 
which  depend  upon  the  sense  of  duty  and  responsi- 
bility. This  spirit  seems  to  have  been  growing, 
especially  among  our  middle  and  wealthier  classes, 
since  the  days  of  our  grandfathers.  And  the  ma- 
terialism of  the  ages  has  by  no  means  diminished  it. 
And  it  is  this  spirit  which,  more  than  any  other 
assignable  cause,  has  made  such  inroads  upon  the 
stability  of  the  American  family. 

No  further  comment  is  necessary,  therefore,  to 

S3 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

make  clear  the  destructive  social  effects  of  the  lives 
of  these  men  and  women  whose  conduct  tends  to 
the  spread  of  vice  and  the  increase  of  divorce. 
Whoever  entertains  toward  his  own  housemate  and 
family  responsibilities  those  hedonistic  thoughts  and 
feelings  which,  if  carried  to  their  logical  outcome, 
would  lead  him  to  repudiate  the  most  intimate  social 
obligations  any  human  being  can  possibly  assume, 
may  well  tremble,  for  he  is  on  the  verge  of  a  preci- 
pice. Let  him  beware  lest  he  be  numbered  among 
the  destroyers  of  the  social  fabric.  Such  as  he  post- 
pone indefinitely  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Not  only  these  considerations,  however,  but  the 
positive  contributions  that  can  be  made  to  the  social 
welfare  by  the  maintenance  of  ideal  family  relations 
may  well  be  considered.  For  they  also  make  it  clear 
that  the  Kingdom  of  God  begins  at  home. 

The  best  things  in  life  have  arisen  out  of  family 
ties,  and  can  only  be  conserved  by  perpetuation  of 
those  ties.  All  are  now  familiar  with  what  John 
Fiske  discovered  in  the  lengthened  period  of  human 
infancy.  It  was  he  who  made  clear  to  us  for  the 
first  time  how  all  the  higher  values  of  life  have 
arisen  out  of  the  relations  made  necessary  by  the 
helplessness  of  infants  and  children.  Love,  altru- 
ism, self-sacrifice,  and  perhaps  even  religious  faith, 

54 


Social  Christianity  Begins  at  Home 


could  never  have  arisen  except  out  of  the  relations 
of  parent  to  child  and  of  brother  to  brother.  The 
dearest  words  in  all  languages  are  the  words  of  the 
hearthstone.  Consider  the  incomparable  values  and 
joys  of  life  connoted  by  such  words  as  mother, 
father,  sweetheart,  babe,  sister,  brother,  son,  and 
daughter.  We  may  legitimately  state  as  one  of  the 
normal  ends  of  a  family,  its  function  as  a  producer 
of  the  highest  good  of  human  life. 

Another  and,  for  our  present  purpose,  a  more 
important  social  function  of  the  family  is  its  function 
as  a  training  school  of  the  social  virtues.     It  was 
the  original  social  unit  where  such  training  was  first 
given,  and  no  other  institution  can  entirely  super- 
sede it.     Here  children  are  habituated  in  obedience 
and  respect  for  authority,  habits  absolutely  essential 
to  the  success  of  government  and  the  stability  of  so- 
ciety.   Here  brothers  and  sisters  learn  self-restraint, 
sympathy,  mutual  help,  and  the  respect  for  the  rights 
of  others,  traits  of  character  absolutely  fundamental 
to  society.     Here  adults  learn  the  full  meaning  of 
love   and  the  self-abnegation  it  motivates.     Here 
they  realize,  too,  the  joys  and  satisfactions  of  the 
most  exacting  responsibilities.     The  terms  brother- 
hood and  fatherhood  have  been  seized  upon  to  sym- 
bolize the  highest  religious  ideals  that  the  world  has 

55 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

ever  conceived,  and  these  symbols  would  be  utterly 
empty  of  meaning  were  it  not  for  the  meaning  con- 
tributed by  the  family  relation.  Thus  the  individual 
is  socialized  in  the  home  as  he  can  be  socialized  no- 
where else,  and  that  socialization  is  drilled  so  early 
and  so  deeply  into  the  habits  of  the  individual  and 
woven  so  intricately  into  the  highest  ideals  of  his  life 
that  he  can  never  escape  them.  Thus  the  family 
transmits  from  age  to  age  the  moral  heritage,  and 
moral  progress  is  possible  only  as  the  family  fur- 
nishes us  with  the  higher  types  of  altruism  and 
nobler  specimens  of  social  devotion. 

It  is  only  as  society  is  liberally  furnished  with 
individuals  who  have  acquired  these  higher  virtues 
that  the  better  phases  of  our  civilization  are  made 
possible.  Moreover,  as  has  been  said,  the  stability 
of  democratic  government  is  absolutely  dependent 
upon  the  habit  of  obedience  and  respect  for  author- 
ity. It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  to  spare  the  rod  is 
not  only  to  spoil  the  child,  but  also  to  spoil  the  re- 
public, for  it  furnishes  us  with  a  generation  of  men 
and  women  who  have  never  learned  respect  and  obe- 
dience for  law.  It  might  not  be  amiss  to  apply  Pro- 
fessor Hall's  term  "degenerate  pedagogy"  to  the 
modern  home  as  well  as  to  the  modern  school.  For 
we  seem  to  be  obsessed  with  the  idea  in  these  days 

56 


Social  Christianity  Begins  at  Home 


that  the  individuality  and  freedom  of  young  America 
must  above  all  things  be  conserved.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  rigorous  drill  in  habits  of  obedience,  which  is 
necessary  to  the  proper  moral  regimen  of  childhood, 
can  seldom  be  enforced  without  sterner  persuasives 
than  are  sanctioned  by  the  domestic  pedagogy  now 
in  vogue.  The  national  custom  of  indulging  the 
willfulness  of  children  and  cultivating  in  them  an 
exaggerated  notion  of  personal  liberty  has  far-reach- 
ing social  and  political  consequences  of  which  the 
average  parent  is  by  no  means  aware. 

Similar  remarks  might  cogently  be  made  about 
the  habits  of  mutual  help.  We  are  suffering  in 
America  from  a  lack  of  public  spirit.  Democracy 
is  like  life-insurance :  no  more  can  be  gotten  out  of 
it  in  the  long  run  than  is  put  into  it.  And  if  we  are 
to  have  public-spirited  citizens,  the  basis  of  that  trait 
of  character  must  be  developed  by  the  relations 
children  are  taught  to  maintain  toward  one  another 
and  toward  their  neighbors  and  local  institutions. 

Since  these  things  are  so,  consider  the  social  in- 
fluence of  an  ideal  home.  In  such  a  home  are  in 
vogue  the  Pauline  ideal  relations  of  husband  to  wife 
and  wife  to  husband,  of  parents  to  children  and  chil- 
dren to  parents,  of  masters  to  servants  and  servants 
to  masters.     Love  reigns  in  such  a  home,  and  it  is 

57 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

a  veritable  heaven  upon  earth.  In  a  home  presided 
over  by  the  right  kind  of  a  husband  and  father,  kind- 
ness banishes  most  of  the  causes  of  friction  that  fur- 
nish the  grist  for  the  divorce-mill.  We  are  told  that 
the  increase  of  divorce  is  partly  due  to  the  com- 
mendable demand  on  the  part  of  womankind  for 
the  enjoyment  of  her  just  rights.  She  is  rightly  pro- 
testing against  oppression  that  so  often  prevailed 
under  the  old  regime,  where  the  lord  and  master 
of  the  house  was  tyrant  as  well.  This,  no  doubt, 
is  in  large  measure  true,  and  perhaps  there  is  a  sense 
in  which  the  increased  divorce  is  a  necessary  evil 
attendant  upon  the  social  advance  of  abolishing  this 
ancient  tyranny;  but  kindness  on  the  part  of  the 
husband  and  father  vacates  this  entire  contention. 
Kindness,  therefore,  is  a  most  efficient  antiseptic  of 
social  disease. 

Again,  how  far-reaching  and  beneficent  is  the 
social  influence  of  the  good  housewife  and  mother. 
Many  a  saintly  matron  is  prone  to  lament  that  she 
has  never  had  the  opportunity  to  do  much  good  in 
the  world.  She  should  be  led  to  understand  the 
social  significance  of  her  life-work.  She  has  con- 
tributed more  than  a  host  of  social  workers.  And, 
moreover,  the  foolish,  undomestic  woman  who  sees 
only  the  limitations,  handicaps,  and  restraints  of  her 

58 


Social  Christianity  Begins  at  Home 

home,  should  also  be  led  to  see  the  opportunity  for 
social  service  that  she  is  missing.  How  empty  is 
the  shallow  round  of  social  functions,  how  fruitless 
the  energy  devoted  to  the  current  fashions,  how 
transient  the  joys  of  freedom  from  responsibility, 
as  compared  with  the  usefulness,  the  benefit,  and 
the  satisfaction  of  training  boys  and  girls  into  phys- 
ical, moral,  and  spiritual  fitness  for  their  places  in 
the  social  order.  Occasionally  some  woman  who  is 
endowed  with  unusual  genius  may  make  a  larger 
contribution  to  the  world's  welfare  as  a  reformer 
and  philanthropist  than  she  could  do  in  any  other 
way;  but  to  the  normal  woman  no  other  task  offers 
a  sphere  of  activity  or  opportunity  which  begins 
to  compare  in  social  usefulness  with  the  domestic 
sphere.  If  God  has  in  store  a  brighter  crown 
for  one  than  for  another  of  His  children,  it  cer- 
tainly is  reserved  for  her  who  has  performed  effi- 
ciently and  well  the  duties  of  that  sphere.  And  cer- 
tainly, if  love  returning  in  old  age  to  the  giver  of 
love  is  the  best  of  earth's  rewards,  she  will  find  her- 
self rich  in  reward  for  the  service  she  has  rendered 
to  humanity. 

The  social  application  of  Christianity  indeed  be- 
gins at  home.  For  the  high  purpose  in  hand  it  is 
far  more  requisite  that  America  should  be  full  of 

59 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

ideal  homes  than  that  we  should  secure  an  equitable 
distribution  of  wealth.  To  be  sure,  many  families 
are  depressed  by  poverty  and  hard  life  below  the 
economic  level  where  an  ideal  home  is  possible,  and 
the  necessity  of  securing  for  such  families  a  sufficient 
economic  basis  can  by  no  means  be  gainsaid  or  dis- 
counted. Nevertheless  there  are  all  too  many  homes 
where  the  economic  causes  are  by  no  means  the  real 
causes  that  interfere  with  their  fulfillment  of  proper 
moral  and  spiritual  functions.  Let  us,  therefore, 
place  alongside  of  our  desire  for  larger  social  justice 
an  equal  desire  for  a  higher  domestic  life;  for  upon 
this,  as  perhaps  upon  no  other  one  thing,  depends 
our  future  as  a  nation.  And  imagine,  moreover, 
what  kind  of  a  world  this  would  be  if  all  the  homes 
that  might  be  ideal  were  really  so. 

Such  a  hope  as  this  is,  however,  somewhat  in- 
consistent on  the  part  of  a  man  or  a  woman  who 
has  not  made  his  own  home,  so  far  as  in  him  lies, 
ideal.  The  political  unit,  so  to  speak,  of  the  King- 
dom of  God  in  which  each  of  us  registers  his  vote 
is  his  own  home.  The  most  consistent  and  the  most 
effective  social  service,  therefore,  that  any  of  us  can 
perform  is  to  render  his  own  home  a  little  model 
of  heaven  upon  earth. 

But  this  can  not  be  done  unless  the  Kingdom  is, 
60 


Social  Christianity  Begins  at  Home 

in  the  words  of  the  child  referred  to  elsewhere, 
down  in  our  own  hearts.  This  is  the  essential  prin- 
ciple. Ideal  institutions,  ideal  society,  depend  upon 
the  ideal  family,  and  the  ideal  family  depends  upon 
ideal  persons.  If  we  feel,  therefore,  as  doubtless 
most  of  us  do,  that  we  can  not  remake  ourselves, 
we  shall  do  well  to  pray  that  some  transfiguring 
power  higher  than  ourselves  shall  give  us  a  new 
heart.  Such  personal  salvation  will  prove  to  be 
social  salvation  as  well. 

Let  us  here  register  two  pleas  in  behalf  of  the 
home  as  a  social  institution.  The  first  of  these  pleas 
is  for  the  restoration  to  the  American  home  of  the 
old-fashioned  family  altar  of  our  fathers  and  grand- 
fathers. What  an  influence  it  exerted  upon  the  lives 
of  those  of  us  who  can  remember  it  as  a  part  of  our 
childhood !  Its  value  is  greater  than  either  our  own 
generation  or  our  fathers'  was  aware.  Read  again 
the  "Cotter's  Saturday  Night."  Listen  reverently 
while  Robert  Burns  portrays  the  scenes  of  worship 
in  the  humble  Scottish  home,  and  ponder  well  what 
he  says: 

"From  scenes  like  these  old  Scotia's  glories  rise." 

The  second  plea  is  for  homeless  children,  espe- 
cially those  of  our  great  cities.    From  them,  if  they 

61 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

are  neglected,  must  inevitably  be  recruited  our  worst 
class  of  criminals.  Nor  will  institutional  life  ade- 
quately solve  the  problem  in  their  behalf.  Nature 
has  decreed  that  they  shall  be  reared  in  homes. 
Science  declares  that  even  red-headed,  unprepossess- 
ing boys,  and  homely,  unkempt  little  girls,  granted 
they  are  not  positively  neurotic  with  respect  to  birth, 
will  turn  out  as  well  on  the  average  as  the  offspring 
of  our  own  homes,  if  only  they  are  given  the  advan- 
tage of  a  favorable  environment.  There  are  hun- 
dreds of  childless  wives  who  might  rear  one  or  more 
such  children.  To  be  sure,  it  would  cost  them  the 
disturbance  of  an  occasional  night's  rest,  the  occa- 
sional forfeiture  of  the  annual  trip  to  the  seaside 
or  the  mountains,  and  the  cancellation  of  some  at- 
tractive social  engagements;  but  it  would  also  have 
its  rewards.  It  would  mean  the  encircling  arms 
and  clinging  fingers  of  a  little  child  uttering  precious 
words  those  wives  otherwise  may  never  hear.  It 
would  mean  a  purpose  in  life  that  would  lift  the  life 
to  a  level  of  incomparably  greater  worth.  It  would 
mean  the  solace  and  comfort  in  later  years  of  manly 
sons  and  affectionate  daughters.  It  would  mean, 
moreover,  a  service  to  the  Kingdom  of  God  with 
which  scarcely  anything  else  which  they  will  have 
the  opportunity  to  do  can  compare. 

62 


IV 

The  Social  Harvest  of  Materialism 


The  Social  Harvest  of  Materialism 

IT  is  proverbially  remarked  that  philosophy  bakes 
no  bread.  But  Professor  James,  in  the  first  chap- 
ters of  his  "Pragmatism,"  insists  that  it  is  the  most 
important  characteristic  of  an  individual  or  a  nation. 
This  is  because  philosophy  is  something  more  than 
mere  intellectual  speculation.  It  is,  as  Rudolph 
Eucken  urges,  a  serious  and  often  passionate  attempt 
to  solve  the  problem  of  human  life.  A  man's  phi- 
losophy is  his  answer  to  the  question  of  what  con- 
stitutes for  him  the  ideal  meaning  of  life.  What 
are  the  ends  really  worth  pursuing,  the  interests  that 
constitute  his  life  really  worth  the  living. 

Because  philosophy  in  this  sense  is  so  serious  a 
concern,  some  of  the  great  historic  systems  of  philo- 
sophical thought  have  exerted  incalculable  influence 
upon  the  course  of  human  events.  Plato's  system 
is  an  illustration,  especially  in  its  bearing  upon  the 
monastic  conception  of  life  prevalent  during  the 
Middle  Ages.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  distinction 
with  which  we  are  all  familiar  between  the  sacred 
and  secular  is  a  far-off  echo  of  this  ancient  philo- 
5  65 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

sophical  system.  In  the  sense  in  which  the  term  is 
here  used,  the  teaching  of  Jesus  may  be  considered 
a  philosophy,  for  they  prescribe  a  way  of  life,  and 
it  is  superfluous  to  comment  here  upon  their  in- 
fluence. 

Each  individual  human  being  has  his  philosophy 
of  life.  Perhaps  he  holds  it  consciously,  perhaps 
only  subconsciously.  But  in  either  case  it  determines 
the  ends  for  which  he  strives,  and  motivates  in  the 
last  analysis  his  entire  activity. 

Modern  nations  all  differ  from  one  another  with 
respect  to  the  philosophy  of  life  that  prevails  among 
them,  and  each  age  in  the  world's  history  is  charac- 
terized by  a  dominating  philosophy  peculiar  to  it- 
self. This  fact  we  often  overlook  in  our  study  of 
history,  and  by  interpreting  some  epoch  of  the  past 
in  terms  of  the  philosophy  of  human  life  that  now 
prevails  among  us  we  utterly  misconstrue  the  his- 
toric epoch  to  which  our  attention  is  directed.  It 
is  only  by  putting  ourselves  into  sympathetic  appre- 
ciation of  the  prevailing  philosophy  of  any  age  that 
we  can  adequately  understand  it.  Thus  the  ancient 
Assyrian  Empire  and  civilization  must  be  inter- 
preted in  terms  of  the  militarism  that  seems  to  have 
dominated  its  activities.  The  Greek  peoples  during 
the  centuries  immediately  following  the  Periclean 

66 


The  Social  Harvest  of  Materialism 

age  were  actuated  by  an  excessively  individualistic 
conception  of  life,  and  this  dominated  the  very 
course  of  their  history.  Monastic  asceticism  and 
chivalric  militarism  contended  for  supremacy  during 
the  mediaeval  epoch.  The  spirit  of  the  Enlighten- 
ment and  of  the  century  that  saw  the  rise  of  de- 
mocracy was  again  individualistic.  Thus  the  pendu- 
lum swings  from  one  extreme  to  another. 

The  philosophy  of  human  life  that  dominates 
our  own  age,  permeates  its  atmosphere,  and  ob- 
sesses the  thought  of  nearly  all  of  our  people,  is 
materialistic.  We  are  convinced  that  a  man's  life 
consists  in  the  abundance  of  the  things  which  he 
possesseth.  We  worship  success,  and  spell  the  name 
of  our  god  with  dollar  signs  instead  of  s's.  In 
terms  of  success  we  realize  that  we  ourselves  are 
appraised  by  our  boyhood  friends  and  the  members 
of  our  own  family,  and  in  the  same  terms  we  are 
preparing  ourselves  to  appraise  our  own  children. 
Hence  the  evidences  of  material  success  and  power 
are  sought  after  with  an  energy  sometimes  almost 
terrific.  We  desire  these  possessions  not  merely  as 
means  of  personal  gratification,  but  because  they  are 
the  current  standards  by  which  the  worth  and 
achievement  of  personalities  are  measured  and  com- 
pared. 

67 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

By  this  standard  do  we  not  only  estimate  our- 
selves and  one  another,  but  also  the  achievements 
of  the  age  itself.  It  is  to  our  material  progress 
and  development  that  we  point  with  pride — our 
transportation  system,  our  splendid  commercial  and 
industrial  cities,  our  multiplied  agencies  of  produc- 
tion, our  new  and  incomparably  efficient  forms  of 
business  organization.  These  are  characteristic  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  The  Industrial  Revolution, 
we  believe,  divides  the  world's  history  into  two  great 
epochs,  and  we  are  quite  confident  that  more  has 
been  achieved  since  than  before.  Thus  do  we  ap- 
praise the  age  in  terms  of  mammon.  The  mani- 
festations of  this  philosophy  are  everywhere  in  evi- 
dence. The  excessive  business  activity  of  the  age 
and  the  luxuries  that  are  displayed  everywhere  are 
perhaps  its  most  concrete  examples.  But  deeper 
than  this  are  certain  habits  of  thought  and  action 
common  among  us.  Thus,  not  generals  and  poets 
and  statesmen  and  philosophers  and  prophets  catch 
most  effectively  the  imagination  of  the  American 
people  and  become  the  heroes  of  youthful  ambition, 
but  captains  of  industry.  Our  rivalries  and  emula- 
tion further  betray  our  materialistic  view  of  life. 
A  large  proportion  of  our  people  are  living  habitu- 
ally beyond  their  means  in  the  frantic  endeavor  to 

68 


The  Social  Harvest  of  Materialism 

keep  up  appearances  so  as  to  maintain  a  social  stand- 
ing equivalent  to  that  of  their  associates,  or  so  as  to 
secure  admittance  to  the  social  circle  of  their  su- 
periors. Our  very  reforms  are  materialistic  at  the 
basis.  Perhaps  this  is  rightly  so,  for  an  epoch  of 
industrial  democracy  must  not  too  tardily  follow 
upon  the  heels  of  political  democracy.  Nevertheless 
the  labor  problem,  socialism,  and  other  kindred 
movements  clearly  reveal  the  fact  that  even  our 
reforms  are  materialistic.  Sometimes  this  material- 
ism is  definitely  and  explicitly  set  forth,  as  in  the 
Marxian  theory  of  history.  More  often  it  is  im- 
plicitly held,  as  by  the  millions  of  our  common 
people,  who  entertain  an  almost  childlike  faith  that 
a  more  equitable  distribution  of  wealth  will  prove 
a  panacea  for  all  the  ills  of  life. 

Nor  is  this  conception  of  life  confined  to  the  rich. 
It  is  even  more  influential  among  our  middle  classes, 
for  there  the  struggle  to  secure  the  material  goods 
of  life  is  more  strenuous  and  the  tragedies  of  failure 
more  numerous  and  distressing.  Not  he  alone  who 
has,  and  whose  only  joy  of  life  consists  in  enjoying 
what  he  has,  is  a  materialist;  but  equally  he  who 
has  not,  but  struggles  to  have,  and  who  believes  that 
he  has  missed  the  joy  of  life  because  he  does  not 
secure.      This   spirit   permeates    also   the   laboring 

69 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

classes,  for  they  also  estimate  their  lives  bitterly  in 
terms  merely  of  the  things  which  they  do  not  possess. 
Since  epochs  differ  with  respect  to  their  domi- 
nating philosophy,  we  must  conclude  that  in  each 
case  peculiar  causes  must  have  been  at  work.  The 
reasons  for  the  current  vogue  of  the  materialistic 
philosophy  of  life  are  not  difficult  to  discover.  They 
are  to  be  sought  in  the  industrial  history  of  the  cen- 
tury and  a  half  just  past.  The  accumulation  of 
capital  in  England  during  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  the  excessive  demand  for  the  products  of  Eng- 
lish industries  over  the  supply,  gave  rise  to  a  deeply- 
felt  want  for  more  rapid  means  of  production.  The 
inventions  which  followed  as  a  result  of  this  ne- 
cessity are  too  well  known  to  need  enumerating  here. 
Chief  among  them  was  the  steam  engine.  These 
inventions  revolutionized  industry,  and  by  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  the  factory  system  had  dis- 
placed former  methods  of  production  almost  every- 
where in  western  Europe  and  America.  Steam 
transportation  and  electric  communication  followed 
almost  immediately.  These  industrial  changes  cre- 
ated the  necessity  for  larger  aggregations  of  capital, 
and  the  corporate  organization  of  industry  was  the 
inevitable  result.  At  the  same  time  these  changes 
were  occurring  the  vast  resources  of  North  America, 

70 


The  Social  Harvest  of  Materialism 

not  to  mention  those  of  other  continents,  invited  ex- 
ploitation. These  modern  industrial  changes  and 
these  vast  new  resources  opened  up  unprecedented 
opportunities  for  wealth-getting.  This  being  the 
case,  men  naturally  devoted  their  attention  to  build- 
ing factories  and  railroads,  promoting  corporations, 
opening  up  new  areas,  and  exploiting  new  resources. 
Occupied  thus  with  these  activities,  it  could  hardly 
be  otherwise  than  that  man  should  become  preoccu- 
pied with  them,  and  the  inevitable  commercial  esti- 
mate of  life  took  possession  of  a  commercial  age. 

The  consequences,  particularly  the  social  con- 
sequences— for  these  are  our  special  concern  here — 
have  been  far-reaching,  and  often  far,  indeed,  from 
beneficial.  This  spirit  of  the  age  has  made  inroads 
upon  our  family-life.  Fathers  have  become  too 
busy  to  properly  companion  and  train  their  boys. 
Mothers  have  been  drawn  into  the  social  whirl  with 
moral  consequences  to  their  children  too  prevalent 
and  plainly  seen  to  need  mention.  The  strain  to 
maintain  the  standard  of  living  demanded  by  ma- 
terialistic ideals  has  not  infrequently  been  too  great 
for  the  family  ties  to  endure.  Many  a  divorce  has 
resulted. 

The  Church,  also,  has  everywhere  felt  the  in- 
fluence of  this  tendency.     Men  have  grown  too  busy 

7i 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

to  attend  its  services.  More  than  that,  they  have 
grown  so  practical  (the  word  has  come  to  connote 
the  spirit  of  the  age)  that  they  have  no  use  for  the 
spiritual  good  of  the  religious  life,  and  therefore 
nothing  to  go  to  church  for.  Classes  of  our  popu- 
lation have  been  alienated  from  the  Church  because 
the  Church  has  refused  or  neglected  (perhaps  un- 
justifiably) to  espouse  their  cause  of  industrial  re- 
form. Consequently  the  problem  of  the  alienation 
of  the  masses  of  the  Church  has  become  more  or 
less  acute.  But  perhaps  the  most  ominous  influence 
of  materialism  upon  the  religious  life  of  our  people 
is  in  its  influence  upon  the  clergy.  Even  they  have 
come  to  estimate  themselves  and  one  another  in 
terms  of  the  salaries  they  receive.  As  a  result  their 
struggle  for  place  and  preferment  is  worldly  enough, 
and  often  unscrupulous.  How  can  the  world  be 
expected  to  hear  and  heed  the  gospel  message  from 
the  lips  of  priests  who  are  themselves  offering  sacri- 
fice upon  the  altars  of  Mammon? 

Our  political  life  has  also  felt  the  pressure  of 
materialistic  ideals.  If  life's  highest  values  are  esti- 
mated in  terms  of  salaries  and  other  emoluments 
only,  how  can  we  expect  that  the  emoluments  will 
always  be  questioned  rigorously  as  to  their  sources? 
If  men  enter  public  life  for  the  money  there  is  in  it, 

72 


The  Social  Harvest  of  Materialism 


and  scarcely  ever  for  other  reasons,  naturally  they 
will  seek  to  get  all  the  money  out  of  it  they  can. 
And  the  temptation  to  accept  dishonest  money  will 
not  be  so  vigorously  scorned  as  in  an  age  and  among 
a  people  where  honor  and  fidelity  to  public  trust  are 
placed  among  the  highest  values  of  life.     Further, 
as  long  as  business  offers  so  many  opportunities  to 
secure  what  is  considered  the  highest  good,  men  who 
are  successful  in  business  will  be  loath  to  turn  to 
the  field  of  politics.    Not  only  that,  but  they  will  be 
able  to  spare  but  little  time  from  their  pursuit  of 
private  wealth  to  devote  to  the  interests  of  the  gen- 
eral welfare.     Inattention  to  public  interests  will 
naturally  become   quite   general.      From   among  a 
people  who  are  almost  universally  too  busy  making 
money  to  give  attention  to  political  interests,  and 
who,  moreover,  conceive  a  government's  chief  func- 
tion to  be  the  maintenance  of  business  prosperity, 
how  is  it  to  be  expected  that  there  will  arise  in  suffi- 
cient numbers  high-minded,  public-spirited  men  as 
candidates  for  political  service?     Moreover,  since 
business  conceives  it  to  be  the  function  of  government 
to  conserve  the  interests  of  business,  how  is  it  to  be 
expected  that  money  motives  will  not  be  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  public  servants  who  are  in  the  public 
service  for  money  ends  ?    A  materialistic  nation  must 

73 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 


inevitably  expect  its  government  to  be  honeycombed 
with  graft.  And  if  that  government  is  a  young  de- 
mocracy, its  success  and  ultimate  survival  will  inevi- 
tably be  jeopardized.  Truly  has  it  been  said  by  one 
of  the  closest  students  of  popular  government  in 
America,  that  we  are  sick  unto  death  with  the  money- 
mania. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  proper  to  hint  at  still  other 
consequences  of  the  materialistic  spirit  of  our  age, 
which,  though  less  evident  and  immediate,  may  pos- 
sibly be  of  even  greater  significance.  It  is  a  question 
how  long  a  people  can  endure  the  stress  of  such  a 
strenuous  life  as  our  American  life  has  been  for  the 
past  generation  or  two,  especially  when  that  strain 
is  not  merely  physical,  but  nervous.  Nor  is  the  nerv- 
ous strain  the  strain  of  mental  work  alone,  but  the 
strain  and  worry  of  the  rivalries,  ambitions,  and  emu- 
lations previously  referred  to.  The  fret,  anxiety, 
and  disappointment  draw  heavily  on  our  vitality. 
The  wear  and  tear,  moreover,  is  not  any  the  less 
when  the  struggle  is,  as  many  of  us  have  realized, 
for  ends  that  are  not  worth  the  struggle.  Who  can 
be  sure  that  this  is  not  among  the  causes  of  the  rest- 
less nervousness  which  foreigners  observe  among 
our  people,  and  which  we  ourselves  may  discern  evi- 
dences of  in  the  immense  demand  for  popular  amuse- 

74 


The  Social  Harvest  of  Materialism 


ments?  Who  can  be  certain  that  there  is  no  causal 
connection  between  these  things  and  the  alarming 
prevalence  of  crime,  insanity,  and  neurosis?  Is  it 
not  conceivable  that  the  race  which  has  brought 
about  the  marvelous  industrial  development  of  mod- 
ern times  shall  fail  to  survive  to  enjoy  its  benefits 
simply  because  the  strain  has  incapacitated  it  for 
reproducing  its  native  population  with  sufficient  ra- 
pidity to  hold  its  own  against  the  superior  fecundity 
of  alien  peoples  who  have  been  attracted  to  our 
shores  by  that  very  industrial  progress  which  we 
have  produced?  And  it  is  impossible  but  that  our 
protracted  service  of  a  god  who  can  not  satisfy  the 
depths  of  the  human  soul  shall  leave  us  in  the  end 
oppressed  by  the  devitalizing  world-weariness  and 
pessimism  always  characteristic  of  a  decadent 
epoch. 

To  the  Christian  inspired  with  the  Kingdom- 
hope  all  this  is  discouraging  indeed,  for  he  knows 
that  a  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of 
the  things  that  he  possesseth.  He  knows,  moreover, 
that  an  age  can  not  serve  both  God  and  Mammon, 
and  that  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  can  never  come  in 
an  age  devoted  to  the  service  of  pelf.  The  social 
consequences  of  materialism  are  to  him  distressing 
indeed,  and  he  prays  daily  that  this  philosophy  of 

75 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

life  may  rapidly  give  place  to  conceptions  more 
Christian.  He  realizes,  moreover,  that  whatever 
means  contribute  to  the  displacement  of  this  phi- 
losophy of  life  will  hasten  the  coming  of  the  King- 
dom. And  he  feels  that  if  he  can  contribute  any- 
thing toward  this  result,  he  will  be  performing  a  val- 
uable social  service. 

The  social  service  that  can  be  rendered  by  a 
single  individual  who,  without  conscious  effort,  is 
blissfully  indifferent  to  the  material  estimate  of  life 
may  perhaps  effectively  be  illustrated  by  an  incident. 
There  was  once  a  man  of  this  stamp  who  taught 
biology  in  the  high  school  of  a  small  city  in  the 
Middle  West.  He  lived  a  simple  life,  was  main- 
taining a  happy  home,  and  rearing  well  a  family  of 
considerable  size  on  a  small  income.  He  was  ab- 
solutely without  restless  effort  to  be  contented  with 
small  means.  Instead  he  thoroughly  enjoyed  his 
life,  his  home,  his  profession,  and  his  religion. 
Years  afterwards — a  long  period  of  Protestant  mis- 
sionary service  in  the  Orient  having  intervened — 
this  man  met  a  young  Jewish  rabbi  who  had  been 
one  of  his  pupils  at  the  time  he  was  a  high-school 
teacher.  He  was  quite  surprised  to  discover  that 
the  young  man  had  become  a  rabbi,  for  he  had  in 
the  former  days  looked  upon  him  as  the  heir  and 

76 


The  Social  Harvest  of  Materialism 

promising  successor  of  a  leading  local  merchant. 
When  asked  by  his  former  teacher  as  to  his  reasons 
for  the  choice  of  a  life-work,  the  teacher  was  com- 
pletely dumbfounded  when  the  young  Jew  replied 
that  it  was  the  teacher  himself  whose  influence  had, 
more  than  anything  else,  determined  his  choice. 
Pressed  for  an  explanation,  the  young  rabbi  replied 
that  the  teacher's  manner  of  life  had  set  him  to 
thinking  that  there  was  something  higher  and  better 
than  merely  to  make  money. 

Ideals  are  contagious.  They  are  not  transmitted 
from  soul  to  soul  by  argument  on  the  part  of  those 
who  only  half  believe  them.  They  are  transmitted 
by  suggestion  from  the  example  of  those  who  believe 
them  so  completely,  so  habitually,  and  so  subcon- 
sciously that  they  put  forth  no  effort  to  resist  com- 
peting ideals  held  by  those  about  them.  All  that  is 
necessary  to  liquidate  the  excessive  materialism  of 
our  age  is  simply  for  enough  of  us  to  believe  thus 
really  and  genuinely  the  Christian  ideals  instead  of 
the  materialistic.  Whoever  serves  God  instead  of 
Mammon  in  the  depths  of  his  heart  contributes  his 
service  to  that  end  as  surely  as  did  the  teacher  re- 
ferred to  above;  and  just  as  this  man's  influence 
must  have  radiated  about  him  in  an  ever-widening 
circle,  so  must  the  influence  of  every  other  such  per- 

77 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 


son.    This  ideal  once  started  in  vogue,  its  vogue  in- 
creases by  geometric  ratio. 

Those  Christians,  then,  who  are  ambitious  to 
render  social  service  in  the  interests  of  the  coming 
Kingdom  of  God  in  the  world  may  well  look  to 
their  own  hearts  to  discover  there  whether  the  in- 
fluence of  their  ideals  is  making  for  or  against  the 
materialistic  spirit  of  the  age.  And  if  they  discover 
there  a  restlessness,  an  effort  of  resistance  to  that 
spirit,  they  may  well  seek  a  change  of  heart  in  the 
ways  it  has  so  often  been  sought.  For  here  again 
it  is  true  that  by  grace  we  are  saved  through  faith, 
and  that  not  of  ourselves :  it  is  the  gift  of  God.  And 
he  whose  personal  salvation  makes  him  a  servant 
from  the  heart  of  God  instead  of  Mammon  may  be 
sure  that  he  will  make  his  proportionate  contribu- 
tion to  the  overthrow  of  the  kingdom  of  Mammon 
and  the  establishment  of  his  own  Father's  Kingdom 
in  the  earth. 


78 


V 

The  Social  Fruits  of  the  Spiritual  Life 


The  Social  Fruits  of  the  Spiritual  Life 

THE  message  of  Rauschenbusch  and  the  other 
prophets  of  social  Christianity  have  already 
been  referred  to.  That  message  has  indeed  moved 
profoundly  the  religious  world.  But  just  now  we  are 
turning  to  another  religious  message  that  bids  fair 
to  move  us  at  least  as  profoundly.  That  is  the  mes- 
sage of  Rudolph  Eucken,  of  Jena. 

His  plea  is  for  the  spiritual  life.  He  contends 
that  its  demands  are  irrepressible  and  perennial. 
The  whole  history  of  philosophy  he  interprets  as  the 
expression  of  the  spiritual  nature  of  man  seeking  to 
solve  the  problem  of  human  life.  He  insists,  more- 
over, that  any  age  which  repudiates  the  needs  of  the 
soul  must  inevitably  be  followed  by  an  age  which 
swings  back  through  spiritual  unrest  to  the  spiritual 
life.  On  the  first  page  of  his  little  booklet  entitled 
"Back  to  Religion"  he  declares  that  it  is  a  super- 
ficial observer  of  the  signs  of  our  times  who  believes 
that  this  age  is  characterized  only  by  blatant  denial, 
for,  he  continues,  however  much  the  denial  of  re- 
ligion may  yet  obtain  among  the  masses,  there  is 
6  81 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

evident  a  demand  arising  out  of  the  intellect  and  out 
of  the  depths  of  men's  souls  for  a  return  to  the 
spiritual  life,  an  undeniable  yearning  for  more  depth 
of  life. 

What,  now,  does  Eucken  mean  by  this  charac- 
teristic phrase  of  his,  "The  depths  of  men's  souls?" 

He  means,  I  think,  those  parts  of  our  natures 
which  activity,  pleasure,  power,  and  learning  fail 
to  satisfy;  those  instinctive  needs  and  desires  which 
have  led  men  in  all  ages  to  construct  philosophies 
and  theologies,  liturgies  and  creeds,  hymns  and 
prayers,  and  live  by  them.  Those  capacities  of  our 
minds  which  are  exercised  and  satisfied  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  duty  well  done,  sorrows  submissively 
and  sweetly  borne,  the  misery  of  existence  reverently 
contemplated:  this  is  the  depths  of  our  souls.  In 
the  depths  of  our  souls  we  feel  remorse  for  sin,  the 
joy  of  forgiveness,  and  the  enthusiasm  of  consecra- 
tion. In  the  depths  of  our  souls  are  emotions  of 
repentance,  mystical  joys  of  faith,  and  immortal 
hopes.  In  the  depths  of  our  souls  do  we  contem- 
plate nature's  vastness  and  power,  her  beauty  and 
order,  and  her  fierce  relentlessness.  The  depths  of 
our  souls  respond  to  the  facts  of  suffering,  sorrow, 
and  death.  It  is  in  the  depths  of  our  souls  that  we 
experience  that  war  in  our  members  of  which  the 

82 


The  Social  Fruits  of  the  Spiritual  Life 

apostle  writes,  the  depressing  sense  of  guilt,  and  the 
exultation  of  moral  victory.  Our  imaginations,  re- 
acting against  the  imperfections  and  incompleteness 
of  our  own  life  and  surroundings  construct,  in  the 
depths  of  our  souls,  ideals  of  a  perfect  life  and  a 
perfect  world. 

In  the  depths  of  our  souls,  says  Professor 
Eucken,  there  is  unmistakable  demand  for  more 
depth  of  life.  What  does  he  mean  again,  by  this 
phrase,  "More  depth  of  life?"  Not  more  business 
activity;  not  more  of  the  excitements  of  pleasure, 
touring,  and  travel;  not  more  power  of  material 
success,  nor  conquests  of  the  scientific  intellect:  but 
something  deeper  than  these.  He  means  more 
peace  of  mind  and  repose  of  soul;  more  singleness 
of  worthy  purpose,  less  clash  and  conflict  of  inner 
desires;  more  mastery  of  self  and  loyalty  to  others; 
more  comfort  of  faith;  more  joy  of  prayer;  more 
delight  of  loving  and  being  loved;  more  strength  of 
soul  to  resist  temptations  and  bear  unbearable 
griefs;  more  insight  into  the  secrets  of  union  with 
God;  more  noble  enthusiasm  for  holy  ideals.  He 
means  more  satisfaction  of  these  passionate  longings 
we  so  often  feel  for  a  holier  life;  the  sparks  of  that 
triumphant  inner  fire  that  from  time  to  time  is  kin- 
dled in  men's  souls  by  renunciation  of  love,  or  even 

83 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

life,  in  behalf  of  holy  causes;  more  of  that  insight 
of  soul  which  gives  us  visions  of  the  invisible  world 
where  broken  arcs  are  completed  in  the  perfect 
round.     This  is  more  depth  of  life. 

It  is  with  such  phrases  as  these  that  Eucken  re- 
fers to  the  spiritual  life.  And  to  this  he  says  we  must 
inevitably  return  if  we  are  to  save  our  lives  from 
emptiness  and  our  age  from  barrenness.  To  this, 
moreover,  he  sees  signs  that  we  are  already  return- 
ing; for  the  souls  of  men  are  never  satisfied  for  long 
with  the  mere  husks  of  life. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  the  epoch  through 
which  we  have  just  passed  has  been  skeptical  indeed 
of  the  joys  and  powers  of  the  spiritual  life.  It  has 
been  a  commercial  age,  valuing  life  in  terms  of 
abundant  possessions.  Men  were  not  bankrupted 
by  the  loss  of  their  souls.  It  has  been  an  individu- 
alistic, selfish  period.  Freedom,  power,  happiness, 
self-assertion,  were  the  great  desiderata.  Men  felt 
little  need  for  prayer  and  the  forgiveness  of  sins. 
It  has  been  a  rationalistic  age.  The  Zeitgeist  had 
little  faith  that  piety  could  lay  hold  on  invisible 
sources  of  personal  power.  It  was  classed  with  the 
vagaries  of  the  shallow-brained.  The  soul  fared  ill 
in  such  a  "practical"  age.  Psychology  tended  to  ex- 
plain prayer  as  a  psychic  phenomenon,  the  activity 

84 


The  Social  Fruits  of  the  Spiritual  Life 

of  the  self  within  the  self,  a  pure  subjectivity,  a  mere 
tugging  at  one's  boot-straps.  Physical  science  regis- 
tered the  existence  of  no  invisible  world;  no  chem- 
istry tabulated  its  elements,  no  astronomy  charted 
its  location.  Naturalistic  philosophy  was  willing,  to 
be  sure,  to  effect  a  division  of  labor  with  poetry, 
but  insisted  that  its  ideals,  though  pretty,  could  not 
be  proven.  And  all  the  time  business,  without  se- 
rious interruptions  or  interferences,  went  on  supply- 
ing the  market  with  everything  the  heart  could  de- 
sire to  eat  and  to  drink  and  to  be  merry  with.  Never 
did  man  seem  so  prosperous  and  so  well  satisfied 
with  himself! 

But  of  all  the  wonders  of  creation  the  most  awe- 
inspiring  is  the  soul  of  man;  and  most  marvelous 
of  all  the  soul's  wonders  is  the  range  and  scope  of 
its  activities  and  needs.  The  vast  designs  of  busi- 
ness and  war,  the  astonishing  creations  of  philosophy 
and  art,  the  delicacy  and  the  power  of  poetry  and 
music,  the  heights  and  depths  of  love,  the  whole 
cycle  of  the  passions,  the  sublime  capacity  for  self- 
abnegation,  the  curiosity  to  know  and  the  will  to 
live  and  do — no  Goethe  or  Shakespeare  can  compass 
all  that  is  in  the  soul  of  man. 

Our  inventories  of  life's  values  are  apt,  there- 
fore, to  fall  short  of  completeness,  and  our  reasons 

85 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

for  valuing  life  are  prone  to  a  lack  of  finality.  For 
the  whole  contents  of  man  defies  enumeration  by 
a  single  part  of  man,  and  life  is  ever  bigger  than 
logic.  For  instance,  our  catalogue  of  the  reasons  for 
duty  is  often  strikingly  deficient.  A  hopeful  doctor 
of  philosophy  scarcely  out  of  adolescence  once  as- 
serted sapiently  that  the  only  reason  for  conjugal 
constancy  was  that  one  might  know  his  own  off- 
spring. As  a  matter  of  fact,  virtue  has,  as  Wester- 
marck  has  shown,  biological  roots  older  and  deeper 
than  human  existence;  and  Fiske  has  shown  us  that 
the  family  relation  bears  as  its  fruitage  the  holiest 
and  best  things  of  human  life.  In  the  light  of  these 
facts  the  flippant  young  professor's  philosophy  seems 
partial  indeed. 

Such  mistakes,  however,  we  are  very  prone  to 
make.  Thus  ideals  that  can  never  be  verified  are 
often  valid  symbols  of  unseen  realities.  The  ideal 
of  a  rescued  sepulcher  or  of  a  westward  route  to 
the  East  Indies  could  not,  indeed,  have  borne  in- 
spection, but  they  validly  symbolized  all  that  after- 
ward grew  out  of  activity  in  their  behalf,  namely, 
the  revival  of  learning  in  one  case,  and  the  whole 
civilization  of  the  western  hemisphere  in  the  other. 
The  Christian  ideals  of  heaven,  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  of  sanctification,  have  never  been  surveyed  and 

86 


The  Social  Fruits  of  the  Spiritual  Life 


charted;  but  they  do  stand,  nevertheless,  as  valid 
symbols  of  we  know  not  what.  Let  them  continue 
to  motivate  endeavor  and  bring  forth  their  benefi- 
cent consequences,  as  they  have  done  in  ages  past; 
for  there  is  more  reality  in  visions  and  ideals  than 
is  dreamed  of  in  the  skeptical  philosophy  of  the  day, 
and  the  epoch  that  omits  religion  from  its  inventory 
of  values  is  presently  avenged  in  the  shallowness  or 
even  decadence  of  its  own  life. 

Yes,  Horatio,  there  are  more  things  in  heaven 
and  earth  than  are  dreamed  of  in  your  philosophy. 

There  are  more  invisible  powers  available  for 
our  inner  life  than  are  reckoned  by  the  rash  skepti- 
cism of  the  age.  For  are  we  not  segments  of  a 
greater  circle?  "Me  poinitet,"  the  Latin  had  it. 
Other  verbs  also  called  for  a  like  unpersonal  idiom, 
as  if  the  soul,  swept  by  certain  emotions  and  pas- 
sions, recognized  itself  passive  rather  than  active; 
handled,  as  it  were,  a  mere  individual  atom,  by 
forces  cosmic  and  universal.  There  are  indeed 
forces  at  work  within  us  that  are  not  of  us.  What 
shall  we  say,  for  instance,  of  our  instincts?  Are  they 
not  manifestations  of  laws  and  powers  that  do  not 
depend  for  their  existence  upon  our  having  been  born 
to  manifest  them?  How,  further,  can  the  percep- 
tion of  outer  things  occur  within  us,  to  interpret  to 

87 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

us  the  things  that  are  without,  unless  there  be  some 
connection  which  we  ourselves  did  not  create  be- 
tween the  inner  and  the  outer?  What,  again,  are 
those  Kantian  categories  of  the  mental  life  a  priori 
to  our  thinking?  Without  them  we  could  not  think 
at  all,  and  yet  before  we  are  they  were,  from  ever- 
lasting to  everlasting,  even  as  the  Creator  Himself, 
who  is  their  source.  What,  once  more,  are  those 
principles  of  logic  according  to  which  we  think? 
They  too  are  in  us,  but  not  of  us ;  yet  without  them 
we  could  not  think  at  all.  They  too  are,  in  a  large 
sense,  not  of  us,  but  of  the  over-world  of  which 
we  partake,  and  which  is  a  part  of  each  of  us. 

So  likewise  in  the  spiritual  world  the  soul  com- 
pletes itself  because  it  partakes  of  powers  not  of  it- 
self, powers  that  ever  were  and  shall  be  for  ever- 
more, and  of  which  all  finite  souls  partake.  Faith 
and  prayer,  assurance  of  forgiveness,  mystical  in- 
sight, and  prophetic  vision  may,  indeed,  puzzle  the 
metaphysicians;  but  by  them  the  powers  of  the  in- 
visible world  are  made  available,  and  the  greatest 
moral  triumphs  do  occur,  both  in  individual  lives 
and  the  social  order. 

And  if  one  rests  intellectually  ill  content  until 
these  powers  of  the  invisible  world  be  named,  let 
him  venture  to  name  them  just  as  his  mother  taught 


The  Social  Fruits  of  the  Spiritual  Life 


him  at  her  knee  to  name  them:  God!  Metaphysics 
can  not  consistently  offer  any  serious  demur  to  that 
name,  for  it  has  no  better  nomenclature  to  suggest. 
Indeed,  the  history  of  philosophy  for  the  last  three 
thousand  years  consists  mostly  in  following  first  this 
great  thinker,  and  then  that  one  into  various  specu- 
lative leads,  only  to  demonstrate  each  in  turn  a  blind 
pocket.  What  little  gold  they  have  found  they  have, 
one  by  one,  poured  molten  into  the  form  of  that 
great  name.  The  last  century  has  conceded  the  in- 
soluble contradictions  of  materialistic  atheism,  while 
the  drift  of  idealism  has  been  steadily  in  the  direc- 
tion of  personalism.  Meantime  the  ancient  ineffable 
Name,  ever  on  the  reverent  lips  of  faith,  has  led  the 
van  of  social  progress  from  Galilee  to  the  Golden 
Gate,  and  now  returns  to  light  the  awakening  Orient. 

And  among  ourselves  men  in  search  of  more 
depth  of  life  and  spiritual  power  are  turning  to  God 
in  ever-increasing  numbers  and  passionate  eagerness. 
For  the  spiritual  life  does  lay  hold  on  power.  It 
does  bear  fruit,  and  its  fruits  are  not  only  individual, 
they  are  social  as  well.  And  if  we  fail  to  explain 
how  it  can  bear  fruit,  it  is  only  necessary  to  point 
out  the  fruits  that  it  has  borne.  If  its  proofs  are 
not  speculative  they  are  pragmatic. 

But  after  all  we  shall  not  have  to  look  far  to  dis- 
89 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

cover  in  part  why  this  is  so.  For  the  spiritual  life, 
like  the  intellectual  life  and  the  cultural  life,  diverts 
attention  and  activity  from  primitive,  anti-social  in- 
terests to  acquired  interests  that  are  socializing. 
Our  primitive,  animal,  untaught  interests  are  inter- 
ests of  hunger  and  passion  and  of  savage  strife; 
and  if  we  devote  our  attentions  and  activities  to 
these,  and  these  alone,  we  inevitably  clash  with  one 
another,  and  social  chaos  must  result.  But  as  Pro- 
fessor Ross  wittily,  though  almost  irreverently,  says, 
the  exerciser  of  dogs  in  training  would  be  wise  not 
to  throw  them  a  bone,  but  rather  to  set  them  baying 
the  moon.  For  there  might  not  be  bone  enough  to 
go  around,  whereas  there  would  be  plenty  of  moon 
for  all.  So  with  the  higher  intellectual  culture  and 
spiritual  interests  of  man.  Attention  and  activity 
devoted  to  them  seldom  breed  disagreements  or  gen- 
erate friction.  Just  to  the  degree  that  we  occupy 
ourselves  with  these  higher  interests,  to  that  degree 
does  social  order  develop.  And  of  all  these  acquired 
socializing  interests  to  which  men  may  devote  their 
attention,  and  from  which  they  may  secure  happiness, 
the  religious  interests  are  most  cheaply  produced  and 
distributed  among  the  common  people.  It  requires 
tremendous  effort  and  capital  to  distribute  widely 
all  the  products  of  science,  philosophy,  literature, 

90 


The  Social  Fruits  of  the  Spiritual  Life 

and  art;  but  men  pray  instinctively,  the  religious  life 
is  spontaneous,  and  a  revival  can  sweep  through  a 
whole  population  redirecting  the  energies  of  the 
masses  as  nothing  else  can  do. 

But  the  religious  life  is  far  more  than  a  mere 
harmless  diversion,  a  mere  plaything  with  which  chil- 
dren can  be  amused,  so  as  to  keep  them  out  of  mis- 
chief. It  is  positively  socializing  in  a  score  of  dif- 
ferent ways.  This  may  be  especially  and  emphat- 
ically said  of  the  Christian  religion.  For  its  unique- 
ness and  grandeur  consists  precisely  in  this,  that  it 
harnesses  the  religious  activities  and  emotions  to 
social  sentiments,  ideals,  and  enterprises.  It  stimu- 
lates instincts  of  sympathy  and  love,  not  only  by  its 
standards,  but  by  the  emotions  that  it  generates. 
Thus  men  are  motivated  to  lives  of  spontaneous  and 
positive  goodness,  they  are  bound  together  by  mutual 
spiritual  interests  of  the  most  intimate  and  tender 
sort.  Thus  the  world's  capital  of  love  is  immeas- 
urably augmented,  and  its  liability  to  hatred  immeas- 
urably decreased. 

Again,  the  religious  life,  especially  the  Christian 
life,  renders  the  heart  right  as  nothing  else  can  pos- 
sibly do.  It  places  its  emphasis  upon  sincerity  and 
good  intentions  as  the  prime  requisites.  And  here, 
again,  it  stimulates  these  virtues  with  emotions  that 

9i 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

can  not  be  tabulated.  It  strengthens,  moreover,  the 
will  by  its  very  access  to  those  higher  and  invisible 
powers  which  no  man  can  explain.  Thus  it  makes 
men  over,  and  from  what  has  already  been  said  of 
the  social  value  of  individual  morality,  its  social 
value  must  appear. 

Not  only  so,  but — and  this  is  most  important  of 
all — religion  always  and  everywhere  has  been  char- 
acterized by  its  power  to  seize  upon  ideals,  enter- 
prises, and  causes,  and  marshal  thereto  fervor  and 
enthusiasm  that  are  incalculable.  History  is  full 
of  instances:  the  pilgrimages  of  the  Buddhists,  the 
conquests  of  the  Mohammedans,  the  fanatical  cru- 
sades of  the  Albigenses,  and  so  on  without  limit. 
This  fervor  and  activity,  often  tremendous,  though 
sometimes  fanatical,  may  be  tamed  and  harnessed 
to  the  cause  of  social  welfare.  It  may  be  made  to 
motivate  the  individual  moral  regeneration  of  whole 
populations  in  behalf  of  social  ideals,  and  it  may 
be  utilized  in  behalf  of  social  justice. 

But  why  should  it  be  attempted  here  to  complete 
the  list  of  reasons  why  the  spiritual  life  regenerates 
men  and  thus  regenerates  society?  This  is  not  an 
argument,  and  even  if  it  were  it  could  gain  nothing 
by  exhaustiveness,  if  that  were  possible.  Suffice  it, 
therefore,  to  assert  again  what  in  our  heart  of  hearts 

92 


The  Social  Fruits  of  the  Spiritual  Life 

we  all  believe,  that  the  spiritual  life  does  get  hold 
on  invisible  power.  And  having  asserted,  let  us 
turn  to  history,  for  history  bears  eloquent  testimony 
to  the  social  fruitage  of  the  spiritual  life.  The  great 
revivals  of  personal  religion  have  always  been  fruit- 
ful of  social  consequences.  One  illustration  may 
suffice.  Green  in  his  "Short  History  of  the  English 
People"  devotes  several  pages  to  the  Wesleyan  re- 
vival of  the  eighteenth  century.  He  says :  "Religion 
carried  to  the  hearts  of  the  people  a  fresh  spirit  of 
moral  zeal,  while  it  purified  our  literature  and  our 
manners.  A  new  philanthropy  reformed  our  pris- 
ons, infused  clemency  and  wisdom  into  our  penal 
laws,  abolished  the  slave-trade,  and  gave  impulse 
to  popular  education.  ...  In  the  nation  at  large 
appeared  a  new  moral  enthusiasm  which,  rigid  and 
pedantic  as  it  often  seemed,  was  still  healthy  in  its 
social  tone,  and  its  power  was  seen  in  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  profligacy  which  had  disgraced  the 
upper  class  and  the  foulness  which  had  infested  the 
literature  ever  since  the  restoration.  .  .  .  A  yet 
nobler  result  of  the  religious  revival  was  the  steady 
attempt,  which  has  never  ceased  from  that  day  to 
this,  to  remedy  the  guilt,  ignorance,  physical  suffer- 
ing, social  degradation  of  the  profligate  and  the 
poor." 

93 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

Such  instances  might  be  multiplied  without  num- 
ber, but  it  is  unnecessary.  Our  social  ills  are  some- 
what different  from  those  of  England  in  the  eight- 
eenth century,  but  they  are  no  less  serious,  and  prob- 
ably no  less  amenable  to  such  ameliorating  influ- 
ences. Who  can  estimate  the  work  of  such  a  re- 
vival  of  personal  religion  sweeping  over  America 
during  this  generation? 

But  let  us  return  to  the  two  religious  messages 
with  reference  to  which  we  began:  the  one  a  plea 
for  the  social  application  of  Christianity,  typified  in 
its  chief  present  representative,  Rauschenbusch,  the 
other  a  plea  for  the  spiritual  life,  its  representative, 
Professor  Eucken.  One  message  is  almost  exclu- 
sively social,  the  other  almost  exclusively  individual. 
But  let  us  discern  clearly  that  they  do  not  contra- 
dict nor  discount  one  another.  Instead  they  are 
mutually  supplementary.  Each  needs  the  other,  and 
the  people  need  them  both.  We  need  more  social 
ends  to  actuate  our  personal  religion;  we  need  more 
personal  spirituality  to  vitalize  our  social  religion. 
If  these  two  messages,  blended  together  in  causal 
connection,  as  they  must  be  if  either  is  to  be  vital, 
are  taken  seriously  to  heart  by  clergy  and  people, 
they  will  together  under  God  redeem  the  times. 


94 


VI 

The  Social  Benefits  of  Self-Denial 


The  Social  Benefits  of  Self -Denial 

A  SELF-CALCULATING  ethic  falls  very  far 
short  of  giving  a  full  account  of  human  na- 
ture. Self-renunciation  is  a  phenomenon  connected 
with  the  most  deep-seated  instincts  of  man,  and  is 
therefore  older,  much  older,  than  the  race.  Biology 
furnishes  abundant  testimony  to  this  significant  fact. 
The  utterly  rash  defense  of  their  young  by  animal 
mothers,  and  the  battles  of  the  ants  in  which  indi- 
viduals seem  to  count  for  nothing,  are  cases  in  which 
the  first  law  of  nature  seems  to  be  set  aside.  But 
without  this  instinct  the  species  would  perish. 

The  human  race  inherits  it.  However  universal 
selfishness  may  be,  this  other  instinct  of  self- 
abnegation  ever  remains,  asserting  itself  at  unex- 
pected times  and  places,  often  most  sublimely.  How 
else  can  we  account  for  the  heroisms  of  war,  and 
the  weary,  unending  toil  of  parents  for  their  chil- 
dren? And  whoever  has  observed  the  face  of  a 
youth  in  whose  soul  there  was  transpiring  the  agony 
of  consecration  to  some  great  ideal  may  well  con- 
sider what  this  passion  is  worth  to  the  world.  For 
7  97 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

without  vicarious  sacrifice  social  salvation  is  impos- 
sible.    History  is  full  of  it. 

The  opinion  is  advanced  by  some  that  it  is  wrong 
for  society  to  accept  gratis  the  self-sacrificing  de- 
votion of  Catholic  nurses.  Perhaps  this  opinion  is 
valid;  still  there  is  something  in  the  priest's  reply 
•who  said,  "But  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  must  be 
kept  alive  in  the  world !"  Indeed,  how  bereft  of  its 
best  things  the  world  would  at  last  become  if  this 
noble  passion  should  cease  to  master  and  mold 
many  of  the  choicest  souls  of  every  generation! 
An  interesting  catalogue  might  be  made  of  the  pre- 
cious possessions  which  this  passion  has  contributed 
to  the  world.  It  vitalized  ancient  Hebrew  prophet- 
ism.  It  motivated  that  missionary  zeal  which  evan- 
gelized all  Europe  by  the  end  of  the  tenth  century, 
and  promises  to  evangelize  all  the  world  by  the  end 
of  the  twentieth.  Had  no  one  been  willing  to  die 
for  Liberty,  democracy  could  never  have  grown  to 
such  proportions.  Stories  came  to  us  from  the  East 
of  how  young  Japanese  soldiers  had  confided  fer- 
vently to  their  English-speaking  friends  that  they 
hoped  to  die  in  Manchuria.  Then  we  understood 
why  Japanese  losses  in  a  charge  could  be  one  hun- 
dred per  cent,  but  a  column  could  not  be  repulsed. 

For  the  leadership  of  great  reforms  this  spirit 

98 


The  Social  Benefits  of  Self-Denial 


is  absoltuely  necessary.  "How,  then,  mark  the  true 
prophet  from  the  false?  How  tell  the  disinterested 
sage  from  the  ambitious  impostor?  The  masses 
have  met  this  difficulty  by  applying  the  rude  but 
effective  test  of  renunciation.  They  will  not  receive 
a  sterner  ideal  unless  the  author  renounces  all  that 
common  men  strive  for.  The  false  prophet  makes 
his  success  the  stepping-stone  to  power  and  ease, 
while  the  true  prophet  puts  the  world  beneath  his 
feet.  Hence,  the  locust  and  the  wild  honey,  the 
staff  and  the  sheep-skin,  have  always  been  the  sure 
credentials  of  the  moral  reformer."*  On  the  other 
hand,  an  evangelist  who  knows  how  to  develop  a 
mob-craze  and  then  capitalize  it  at  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars,  can  hardly  expect  the  benediction 
of  posterity. 

It  may  be  that  the  real  contribution  of  the  clergy 
of  our  day  to  social  welfare  and  progress  is  in  direct 
proportion  to  the  degree  of  this  spirit  which  actu- 
ates it.  The  temptations  were  never  greater  than 
in  an  epoch  like  ours  for  clergymen  to  become  sor- 
didly professionalized;  and  many,  no  doubt,  have 
gradually  succumbed  to  the  subtle  temptation. 

The  various  new  forms  of  philanthropy  and 
social  engineering  now  developing  have  given  rise 

*Ross,  "  Social  Control,"  p.  359. 

99 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

to  a  new  profession,  which  might  be  termed  the 
profession  of  social  service.  Schools  have  already 
been  established  to  train  young  men  and  women  for 
this  profession.  The  demand  for  such  young  per- 
sons exceeds  the  supply,  and  is  increasing;  but  the 
pay  is  usually  small.  The  passion  of  altruistic  de- 
votion  must  be  relied  upon  to  furnish  recruits.  Con- 
secration is  the  door  to  this  service.  Upon  the  re- 
sponse depends  in  considerable  measure  the  Chris- 
tianization  of  the  social  order. 

But  if  in  our  modern  society  we  need  the  spirit 
of  self-denial  as  a  qualification  for  reform  leaders, 
we  need  it  much  more  in  the  very  texture  of  our 
whole  life.  The  atmosphere  is  charged  with  selfish 
individualism,  which,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  is  eat- 
ing at  the  vitals  of  our  institutions.  We  shall  never 
recover  until  we  reinstate  in  some  measure  at  least 
the  austere,  rigorous  virtue  of  a  stricter  generation. 
The  prevailing  tendency  nowadays  seems  to  be  to 
satisfy  the  cravings  of  human  nature  for  happiness, 
pleasure  or  self-gratification,  without  any  very  deep 
or  far-sighted  regard  to  consequences.  Naturally, 
therefore,  the  world  is  full  of  the  forms  of  moral 
laxness  repeatedly  referred  to,  and  which  constitute 
the  disintegrating  agencies  of  our  times.     Blue  laws 

XOO 


The  Social  Benefits  of  Self-Denial 


no  doubt  are  extreme ;  and  the  puritanical  rigor  that 
voluntarily  accepts  the  standards  which  blue  laws 
are  designed  to  impose  upon  the  unwilling  is  a  harsh 
one,  to  be  sure;  but  that  rigor  makes  an  adaman- 
tine virtue  fit  for  the  foundations  of  a  great  civili- 
zation. Too  little  such  lime  in  the  superstructure 
may  imperil  the  walls.  Such  austerity  is  the  prime 
moral  need  of  our  age.  It  alone  can  furnish  us  in- 
corruptible judges,  honest  legislators,  and  faithful 
executives.  Nothing  less  can  eliminate  infidelity 
from  our  public  life,  and  put  our  business  life  on 
the  moral  level  demanded  by  the  deepest  needs  and 
best  insight  of  the  age.  And  only  this  can  restore 
the  creed  upon  which  the  family  is  built.  For  it  is 
always  the  seductive  lure  of  illicit  self-gratification 
that  draws  us  from  the  straight  course ;  and  unless 
one's  philosophy  of  life  is  beaten  firmly  into  the 
warp  of  self-restraint,  he  will  hardly  be  able  to  stifle 
the  passion  of  temptation. 

We  are  accustomed  to  cast  slanting  remarks  at 
the  austerities  of  our  fathers,  and  caricature  the  pe- 
culiarities of  dress,  speech,  and  manner  that  were 
associated  with  their  austerities.  The  final  footing 
of  the  columns  may,  however,  show  a  balance  to 
their  accounts;  and  the  time  may  come  when  we 

IOI 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

shall  be  characterized  non-conductors  of  civilization. 
Doubtless  the  purple-clad  Romans  of  the  later  am- 
phitheater poked  fun  at  Cincinnatus. 

The  decadence  of  this  spirit  of  self-denial  we 
find  referred  to  in  most  unexpected  places.  For  in- 
stance, in  a  recently-issued  treatise  on  educational 
theory  may  be  found  the  following  sentences: 

"To  see  to  it  that  the  ideals  which  accumulated 
human  experience  has  shown  to  be  worthy  and  to 
make  for  social  welfare,  are  safely  and  effectively 
transmitted  from  generation  to  generation  is  ob- 
viously a  prime  task  of  education.  The  decline  of 
the  ancient  civilizations  is  generally  recognized  as 
having  been  due  to  the  fact  that  the  races  which 
had  so  laboriously  built  up  these  civilizations  failed 
to  transmit  from  generation  to  generation  the  ideals 
that  were  essential  to  their  perpetuation.  Chief 
among  these  are  the  ideals  of  self-denial  and  self- 
sacrifice — those  essential  standards  of  human  con- 
duct that  have  made  all  advancement  possible.  It 
is  because  material  prosperity  eliminates  the  con- 
ditions which  give  vitality  and  emotive  force  to 
these  ideals, — it  is  for  this  reason  that  material 
prosperity,  unless  checked  and  controlled  by  edu- 
cative forces,  tends  to  national  and  ethnic  decay. 
Both  Greece  and  Rome  lacked  an  organized  educa- 

102 


The  Social  Benefits  of  Self-Denial 

tional  institution  that  would  automatically  instill 
these  ideals  into  each  generation.  It  remains  to 
be  seen  whether  modern  education  will  be  adequate 
to  the  task.  Certain  it  is  that  the  present  tenden- 
cies in  our  schools  toward  ease  and  comfort  and 
the  lines  of  least  resistance  confirm  rather  than 
counteract  the  operation  of  the  Zeitgeist  which  re- 
flects so  perfectly  the  moral  decadence  that  comes 
with  prosperity — the  letting  loose  the  grip  that  our 
forefathers,  who  lived  under  sterner  and  harsher 
conditions,  had  upon  the  ideals  of  self-denial  and 
self-sacrifice."* 

Moreover,  the  lack  of  these  ideals  shows  its 
consequences  in  the  most  remote  and  unexpected 
ways.  Take,  for  instance,  the  tendency  of  our  so- 
ciety to  stratify  into  classes.  Scarcely  anything 
could  be  more  undesirable  in  a  democracy,  for  his- 
tory warns  us  ominously  of  the  volcanic  upheavals 
that  ultimately  break  up  these  crusts.  However 
validly  we  may  charge  such  formations  to  economic 
forces,  it  still  remains  true  that  the  psychology  o£ 
the  thing  is  the  love  of  display,  the  pride  of  emu- 
lation, and  the  lust  of  personal  power.  However 
prime  a  requisite  to  the  prevention  of  this  caste- 
formation  a  proper  distribution  of  economic  reward 

*  Bagley,  "  Educational  Values,"  p.  60. 
IO3 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

and  opportunity  may  be,  it  must  be  seen  also  that 
renunciation  and  humility  are  factors  worth  con- 
sidering on  their  own  account.  Advice  about  the 
appropriate  treatment  of  poor  men  in  vile  raiment 
as  compared  with  men  in  gold  rings  and  goodly  ap- 
parel is,  indeed,  quite  counter  to  human  nature ;  but 
after  all  it  actuates  brotherhoods  in  the  obscure  cor- 
ners of  Ephesus  and  Corinth,  which  later  become 
the  leaven  of  the  world. 

Cause-loyalty  and  rigid  renunciation  of  personal 
interests  and  inclinations  are  the  key  also  to  the 
labor  problem. 

The  growth  of  population  always  tends  to  over- 
supply  the  labor  market.  The  purchasers  of  labor 
take  advantage  of  the  resulting  competition  among 
laborers  to  beat  the  price  of  labor  down  to  bare 
means  of  subsistence.  Consequently  the  sellers  of 
labor  have  always  been  exploited  by  the  buyers  of 
labor.  Slavery  and  serfdom  are  historic  forms  of 
that  exploitation;  wage-oppression  is  the  contempo- 
raneous form.  The  great  trusts  may  easily  become 
the  greatest  oppressors,  because  they  have  the  great- 
est advantage  over  individual  laborers. 

To  stand  together  and  sell  their  labor  collec- 
tively are  the  laborers'  only  escape  from  this  op- 
pression.    The  tremendous  power  that  in  this  way 

104 


The  Social  Benefits  of  Self-Denial 

labor  could  exert  in  its  own  behalf  is  really  quite 
startling.  There  need  be  no  limit  to  labor's  share 
in  production  except  the  productivity  of  labor,  if 
only  all  laborers  would  submerge  their  personal  in- 
terests to  the  interests  of  their  class. 

Laborers  are  disqualified  for  such  co-operation 
by  natural  human  selfishness,  and  by  the  brutalizing 
vices  to  which  they  are  so  apt  to  be  addicted.  Our 
liquor  system  not  only  loads  the  laboring  man's  beer 
bucket  with  the  federal  taxes  the  trusts  should  bear, 
but  also  debauches  him  beyond  the  capacity  for  effi- 
cient organization  against  those  that  hire  him. 

If  the  leaders  and  the  rank  and  file  of  labor 
could  become  imbued  with  a  pious  passion  for  their 
cause  like  that  which  characterized  Cromwell's  bri- 
gade, their  contribution  to  the  cause  of  industrial 
democracy  might  be  more  commensurate  with  the 
contribution  of  Cromwell -and  his  men  to  the  cause 
of  political  democracy. 

And,  I  dare  say,  the  secret  of  individual  happi- 
ness is  also  to  be  found  here.  Perhaps  a  unique 
and  effective  illustration  of  this  fact  may  be  found 
in  the  vogue  and  acceptability  of  Spinoza's  phi- 
losophy. For,  when  some  great  thinker's  guess  at 
the  ultimate  mystery  of  life  and  things  enjoys  wide 
currency  over  a  long  period  of  time,  it  may  be  pretty 

105 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

certainly  assumed  that  there  is  a  core  of  truth  in 
it  which  satisfies  the  needs  of  human  nature.  Spi- 
noza's system  is  fatalistic  and  pantheistic  in  its  meta- 
physical aspects;  but  its  ethical  outcome  is  in  what 
he  calls  the  love  of  God.  By  this  he  really  means 
-a  willing,  submissive  absorption  in  and  obedience 
to  Nature.  "Our  life  is  a  battle  between  surrender 
to  the  phenomenal  world  and  ascent  to  the  world  of 
reality,  obstinate  clinging  to  petty  individualism  and 
willing  absorption  in  Infinite  Being.  .  .  .  Spinoza 
feels  the  traditional  ideals  of  conduct  to  be  unbear- 
ably small  and  petty,  since,  whatever  the  breadth 
they  may  seem  to  have,  they  do  not  take  man  out 
of  himself  and  the  sphere  of  his  own  ideas,  interests, 
and  emotions."* 

For  purposes  of  our  adjustment  to  society  and 
the  social  awakening,  as  well  as  to  our  own  inner 
selves,  we  might  paraphrase  Spinoza's  thought  by 
asserting  that  the  secret  of  life  is  to  be  found  in 
closer  intimacy  with  the  social  cosmos  and  absorp- 
tion in  its  evolution. 

Self-denial  seldom  manifests  itself  except  in  con- 
nection with  some  strong  instinct.  It  can  not,  there- 
fore, be  made  to  order,  but  results  as  a  by-product 
from  the  stimulation  of  the  instinct.     The  three  in- 

*Eucken,  "The  Problem  of  Human  Life,"  pp.  373,  378. 

106 


The  Social  Benefits  of  Self-Denial 

stincts  with  which  it  most  commonly  displays  itself 
are  fighting,  the  parental  instincts,  and  religion. 

It  is  the  last  of  these  with  which  we  are  now 
concerned.  Any  student  of  the  ethnic  religions  is 
familiar  with  the  phenomena  of  self-inflicted  tor- 
tures and  fanatical  devotion  to  superstitious  enter- 
prises that  take  heavy  toll  of  life.  As  for  our  own 
religion,  who  can  forget  what  it  has  cost  its  devo- 
tees! 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  Christian  religion  that 
it  seized  upon  this,  as  upon  other  socializing  in- 
stincts, magnified  and  idealized  it,  and  so  gave  it 
tremendous  force  in  the  world.  This  feature  of 
Christianity,  however,  is  hardly  recognized  in  these 
days,  because  the  spirit  of  the  times  is  so  contrary 
to  it.  Nor  do  we  fully  appreciate  the  emphasis  that 
early  Christianity  placed  upon  self-denial.  So  ex- 
treme is  the  emphasis  to-day  upon  social  religion 
and  programs  for  the  betterment  of  this  world  that 
the  other-worldly  character  of  apostolic  and  patris- 
tic Christianity  is  largely  forgotten.  We  also  inter- 
pret this  element  out  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  Him- 
self, thereby  doing  violence  to  His  thought. 

But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  early  Christians  were 
dwellers  in  tents.  They  were  but  pilgrims  here, 
journeying  home  to  an  abiding  country.     It  was  not 

107 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

the  visible,  but  the  invisible  world  which  was  real 
to  them.  So  temporary,  indeed,  was  the  world,  so 
transient  their  lives  in  it,  that  nothing  of  weal  or 
woe  was  counted  of  much  consequence.  It  was  only 
under  the  inspiration  of  this  faith  that  they  were 
able  to  bear  what  they  had  to  bear.  If  the  blood 
of  the  martyrs  was  the  seed  of  the  Church,  it  fol- 
lows that  without  this  spirit  of  self-denial  Chris- 
tianity could  never  have  taken  root  in  the  world. 

What  was  true  of  the  early  Church  has  been 
more  or  less  true  at  every  epoch  in  her  history.  And 
if  by  lightening  the  emphasis  upon  other-worldliness 
we  should  lose  the  motive  for  self-denial,  it  would 
be  a  sorry  shift  indeed  for  the  world  that  now  is. 
There  ought  to  be  no  danger,  however;  for  the  in- 
creasing social  interest,  not  to  say  passion,  of  the 
present  time,  together  with  the  more  enlightened 
insight  into  the  social  consequences  of  self-indul- 
gence, ought  to  more  than  make  up  for  the  lack  of 
that  early,  semi-fanatical  other-worldliness.  And 
it  is  devoutly  to  be  hoped  that  religion  may  assume 
a  form  in  America  and  take  on  a  fervor  that  shall 
revive  its  early  spirit  of  self-denial.  Consecration 
is  a  good  word  yet! 


108 


VII 

The  Social  Function  of  the  Church 


The  Social  Function  of  the  Church 

EDUCATORS  are  guided  in  their  professional 
work  by  a  philosophy  of  education  in  which 
there  is  formulated  a  systematic  theory  of  the  ends 
of  education,  the  means  and  methods  adapted  to 
each  of  the  various  ends,  and  the  relative  value  of 
the  respective  means  and  ends.  This  body  of  stand- 
ardized theory  is  of  great  value,  for  it  rescues  our 
educational  system  from  the  blunders  and  waste  of 
empiricism. 

The  clergy  also  seriously  needs  such  a  philoso- 
phy, some  authorized  and  well-grounded  and  thor- 
oughly-worked-out  concensus  of  opinion  as  to  what 
the  Church  is  for,  how  the  ends  for  which  it  exists 
are  to  be  realized,  and  the  relative  value  and  impor- 
tance of  the  various  kinds  of  Church  activity.  Un- 
fortunately, however,  they  do  not  possess  such  a 
philosophy  of  the  ecclesiastical  function.  The  result 
is  great  confusion.  Various  conceptions  of  the  ends 
and  aims  of  ecclesiastical  activity  are  more  or  less 
explicitly  held  by  this  one  or  that  one.  A  great 
variety  of  new  theories  abound  which  lead  to  experi- 

iii 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 


mentation;  or  the  older  and  traditional  perpetuates 
itself  through  sheer  inertia.  But  nowhere  is  there 
any  balance,  adjustment,  or  authority. 

To  illustrate  the  condition  referred  to  and  at  the 
same  time  introduce  the  problem  of  the  Church's 
social  function,  there  might  be  enumerated  two  dif- 
ferent and  apparently  contradictory  theories  as  to 
the  Church's  function  which  are  commonly  in  vogue. 
First,  that  the  Church  exists  in  order  to  save  indi- 
viduals from  hell ;  second,  that  its  business  is  to  re- 
construct and  save  the  social  order. 

The  first  of  these  dominated  the  Middle  Ages 
and  is  still  extant  among  us.  It  explains  the  vast 
majority  of  Church  activities  of  the  past,  and  per- 
haps also  of  the  present  as  well.  As  held  in  its  ex- 
treme form,  it  utterly  ignores  and  sometimes  ex- 
plicitly denies  the  second  end  mentioned. 

The  second,  on  the  other  hand,  has  enjoyed  an 
immense  vogue  of  late,  though  it  may  have  had 
some  incidental  recognition  always.  As  now  ad- 
vocated in  some  quarters,  however,  there  is  some 
tendency  manifested  to  make  it  imply  complete  re- 
pudiation of  the  latter. 

It  will  be  seen  that  on  the  basis  of  either  of 
these  two  theories  alone  there  inevitably  arises  un- 
certainty and  confusion,  and  that  uncertainty  often 

112 


The  Social  Function  of  the  Church 


avenges  itself  in  practice  by  the  inadequacy  and  in- 
completeness of  the  work  resulting. 

An  attempt  to  compromise  these  two  theories 
might  be  stated  somewhat  as  follows :  that  the  busi- 
ness of  the  Church  is  to  make  men  fit  either  for  so- 
ciety or  for  heaven.  But  here  again  the  necessity 
for  a  thoroughly  worked  out  philosophy  of  the 
Church's  function  is  evident.  For  this  proposition 
assumes  that  fitness  for  society  is  fitness  for  heaven. 
But,  abandoning  this  assumption  and  the  puzzles 
that  it  might  lead  to,  another  puzzle  may  be  noted 
which  is  involved  in  the  proposition;  viz.,  whether 
the  Church  should  approach  the  individual  directly 
or  through  his  environment.  And  if  directly,  should 
it  be  by  inspiration  chiefly,  or  by  instruction,  regi- 
men, habituation,  etc.  And  if  indirectly  through 
society,  the  question  arises  whether  society  or  the 
individual  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  the  end  of  its 
activity. 

But  it  is  only  the  intent  here  to  suggest  the  de- 
sirability of  such  a  system  of  thought  as  has  been 
referred  to,  and  to  hint  at  some  of  the  problems  in- 
volved in  it.  Manifestly,  if  these  puzzles  could  be 
reduced,  and  a  systematic  philosophy  of  the  Church's 
function  provided,  we  should  be  able  to  reduce  the 
various  activities  of  the  Church  to  a  much  more  just 
8  113 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

proportion,  and  so  accomplish  incomparably  more 
with  a  given  amount  of  energy  expended. 

Without  attempting,  however,  to  answer  the  the- 
oretical questions  raised,  let  us  proceed  to  some  dis- 
cussion of  the  social  function  of  the  Church.  We 
may,  perhaps,  safely  begin  by  laying  down  the  prop- 
osition that  there  are  two  ways  at  least  in  which  the 
Church  may  proceed  in  the  performance  of  its  social 
function.  The  first  is  the  endeavor  to  better  society 
directly  by  changing  for  the  better  social  conditions 
and  social  organs.  The  second  is  to  better  society 
indirectly  by  improving  the  individuals  that  compose 
society. 

The  first  of  these  is  of  great  importance.  It  is 
the  aim  of  the  modern  social  awakening.  It  is  the 
gist  of  social  religion  in  the  present  stage  of  its  de- 
velopment. It  characterizes  the  spirit  of  the  age. 
This  social  aim  is  motivating  as  never  before  all  our 
intellectual  activities:  science,  politics,  literature, 
philanthropy,  as  well  as  religion.  There  are  various 
ways  in  which  the  Church  may  seek  to  assist  in  this 
contemporaneous  movement  for  the  betterment  of 
society.  She  may  preach  the  social  ideal  and  point 
out  its  place  in  the  thought  of  the  Founder,  thus 
inspiring  with  this  socio-religious  motive  millions  of 
people  who  can  be  reached  in  no  other  way.     This 

114 


The  Social  Function  of  the  Church 


the  Church  is  doing  as  a  matter  of  fact.  Countless 
sermons  have  been  preached  during  the  past  decade 
on  the  social  application  of  Christianity.  Millions 
of  Christian  people  have  been  interested  in  the  so- 
cial teachings  of  Jesus  and  have  read  books  on  social 
religion. 

Another  thing  that  the  Church  can  do  is  to  co- 
operate with  philanthropic  enterprise  and  reform 
movement.  This  also  she  is  doing  to  a  degree  that 
perhaps  is  not  adequately  appreciated.  Through 
the  Federal  Council  of  Churches  she  has  taken  a 
stand  for  the  minimum  wage;  through  the  Na- 
tional Child-labor  Committee,  for  the  betterment  of 
working  conditions;  the  churches  also  have  co- 
operated largely  in  the  anti-vice  campaign,  and  are 
taking  an  important  part  in  the  agitation  for  acci- 
dent-indemnity laws.  Many  further  activities  of  this 
kind  might  be  enumerated. 

Such  co-operation  as  this  with  philanthropy  and 
reforms,  it  may  be  noted,  are  not  usually  local  en- 
terprises for  the  local  Church,  but  instead  are  causes 
which,  like  the  missionary  cause,  must  be  furthered 
through  the  central  agencies  of  a  whole  denomina- 
tion, or  even  by  several  denominations  in  co-opera- 
tion with  one  another.  Denominational  alignment 
for  a  great  enterprise  has  been  successfully  accom- 

ii5 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

plished  by  modern  Christendom  in  the  interests  of 
foreign  missions,  and  to  some  extent  in  the  interests 
of  temperance.  These  lessons  as  to  what  may  be 
accomplished  in  behalf  of  a  great  cause  by  inter- 
denominational alignment  and  mutual  co-operation 
.should  be  pondered  well.  For  they  suggest  to  all 
thoughtful  advocates  of  social  reform  what  may  be 
accomplished  by  the  Churches  for  such  causes  as 
child-labor,  industrial  accidents,  eugenics,  and  a 
score  of  other  social  interests,  if  the  whole  body  of 
Christians  could  unite  effectively  in  their  behalf,  as 
they  have  been  able  to  unite  and  co-operate  in  behalf 
of  foreign  missions.  We  already  have  the  begin- 
nings of  organizations  to  that  end,  notably  the  Fed- 
eral Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America. 
There  is  no  more  inspiring  subject  for  meditation 
than  to  consider  what  can  be  accomplished  in  behalf 
of  the  practical  interests  of  the  Kingdom  when  this 
alignment  shall  have  been  perfected. 

Another  thing  that  must  come  and  will  naturally 
come  as  a  by-product  of  the  movements  we  have 
just  been  speaking  of,  will  be  the  elimination  of  de- 
nominational competition  and  the  waste  accompany- 
ing it.  We  seriously  need  a  redistribution  of  eccle- 
siastical energy  and  activity  from  over-churched 
rural   districts,   where   the   competitive   struggle   is 

116 


The  Social  Function  of  the  Church 

wasting  men,  money,  and  devotion,  to  the  un- 
churched and  neglected  slums  of  our  great  cities. 
Thousands  of  young  ministers  are  laboring  in  coun- 
try places  oppressed  beyond  expression  by  the  reali- 
zation that  the  little  community  in  which  they  live 
would  be  as  well  or  better  off  if  their  own  Churches 
were  removed  entirely  and  the  field  left  to  those  that 
remain.  These  same  young  men,  many  of  them,  have 
seen  the  social  vision  and  are  praying  daily  with 
almost  passionate  entreaties  that  opportunity  may 
be  given  them  to  devote  their  services  to  the  social 
regeneration  and  salvation  of  our  great  neglected 
centers.  Here  is  perhaps  the  most  pressing  problem 
in  religious  strategy  that  now  presents  itself  to  our 
captains  of  ecclesiasticism. 

Perhaps  the  form  in  which  the  problem  of  the 
Church's  social  function  presents  itself  most  fre- 
quently, especially  to  that  class  of  young  clergymen 
to  whom  reference  has  just  been  made,  is  the  ques- 
tion of  what  the  local  Church  can  do  in  matters  of 
local  social  service  and  activity.  Feeling  the  call  of 
the  social  ideal,  but  failing  to  realize  either  that  the 
chief  social  work  of  the  Church  must  be  done  either 
through  denominational  co-operation  with  the  re- 
forms just  mentioned,  or  through  the  regeneration 
of  individuals,  to  which  we  shall  proceed  in  a  mo- 

117 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 


ment,  these  young  men  have  otten  sought  to  trans- 
form their  local  Churches  into  philanthropic  and 
charitable  institutions  or  into  social  centers.  This 
tendency  has  given  rise  to  the  institutional  Church 
in  the  city  and  to  the  community-life  Church  in  the 
tountry. 

While  the  social  aspiration  that  has  given  rise 
to  these  experiments  is  no  doubt  laudable  in  the 
highest  degree,  still  it  must  be  conceded  that  this 
zeal  has  often  developed  in  a  one-sided,  fanatical 
way.  Perhaps  more  of  these  enterprises  have  failed 
than  have  succeeded,  so  that  the  whole  question  of 
the  adequacy  and  permanence  of  this  kind  of  Church 
work  is  still  in  question. 

The  Church,  however,  is  not  the  only  institution 
thus  embarrassed  by  the  rise  of  this  new  social  zeal. 
A  few  years  ago  in  one  of  the  Central  States  of  the 
Middle  West  there  gathered  at  a  well-known  center 
of  pedagogical  learning  a  large  group  of  persons, 
mostly  young  women,  under  the  auspices  of  a  new 
and  enthusiastic  organization  known  as  the  Country 
Teachers'  Association.  The  inspiring  genius  of  this 
meeting  was  a  person  of  charming  grace  and  mag- 
netic personality,  who  was  full  of  enthusiasm  for  the 
country-life  movement.  This  leader  was  able  to  see 
visions  and  dream  dreams  as  to  the  possibilities  of 

118 


The  Social  Function  of  the  Church 

country-life  improvement  and  the  function  and  op- 
portunity of  the  country  school  teacher  in  connection 
therewith.  The  whole  program  was  inspirational  in 
the  extreme,  and  the  ideal  carried  the  delegates  to 
the  highest  pitch  of  enthusiasm.  At  the  critical  mo- 
ment in  the  program,  just  as  the  young  teachers  were 
pledging  themselves  to  exert  their  influence  in  the 
districts  to  which  they  were  about  to  go,  in  behalf 
of  the  movement  under  consideration,  there  pre- 
sented himself  before  the  audience  a  middle-aged 
man  of  striking  appearance.  His  face  was  cadaver- 
ous and  somewhat  cynical  in  its  expression,  but  his 
eye  was  keen  and  twinkled  with  humor  and  common 
sense.  He  proved  to  be  a  prominent  educational  of- 
ficial of  the  State,  and  with  a  speech  markedly  sug- 
gestive of  the  Fatherland  he  spoke  as  follows: 

uVe  are  here  to-day  on  the  Moundain  of  Drans- 
figuration.  Led  us  build  three  dabernagles,  etc." 
Thus  he  proceeded,  gradually  and  humorously  feel- 
ing his  way  to  a  mastery  of  the  situation,  which  by 
tact  and  skill  he  at  length  secured.  The  general 
drift  of  his  remarks  may  be  surmised  from  the  con- 
cluding paragraph  of  his  extemporaneous  address, 
which  was  as  follows: 

"The  pusiness  of  the  coundry  school  deacher  is 
to  deach  school.     If  she  makes  good  at  that  she 

119 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 


might  perhaps  interest  the  farmers  a  little  in  better 
roads  and  better  social  life.  But  if  she  begins  by 
making  a  hobby  of  rural  community  building,  like 
as  not  she  '11  forget  to  deach  the  children  to  read. 
Then  de  directors  vill  say,  'Another  fool  from  the 
normal  school.'  " 

The  present  situation  in  the  Church  relative  to 
social  activities  is  not  altogether  different  from  that 
suggested  by  this  incident.  The  present  writer  must 
confess  that  he  went  away  from  that  convention  of 
teachers  with  a  paraphrased  version  of  the  German 
pedagogue's  philosophy  ringing  in  his  ears.  "The 
pusiness  of  the  breacher  is  to  breach  the  gospel." 
And  this  philosophy  may  well  impress  itself  deeply 
upon  the  minds  of  the  contemporaneous  clergy. 
They  may  well  repeat  again  and  again  in  thoughtful 
soliloquy,  "The  business  of  the  preacher  is  to  preach 
the  gospel." 

And  this  leads  us  to  the  second  way  in  which  the 
Church  may  improve  society,  namely,  by  improving 
the  character  of  the  individuals  who  compose  society. 
It  is  in  this  way  that  the  preaching  of  the  gospel 
has  far  more  significant  social  consequences  than 
many  of  us  are  apt  to  realize.  The  social  value  of 
the  ordinary  work  of  the  ordinary  Church  is  not 
to  be  judged  by  its  conscious  social  aims  alone,  for 

1 20 


The  Social  Function  of  the  Church 


it  may  well  be  that  it  is  not  consciously  social  in  its 
aims.  Its  social  significance  is  rather  to  be  judged 
from  the  standpoint  of  its  social  effects.  And  it  is 
to  these  that  consideration  here  is  to  be  directed. 
For  a  vast  amount  of  social  betterment  may  be  ac- 
complished simply  by  improving  the  character  of  the 
individuals  who  compose  society.  And  this  ordinary 
work  the  Church  actually  accomplishes  with  remark- 
able efficiency. 

The  Church  sets  up  and  maintains  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  the  moral  standards  so  necessary 
to  the  maintenance  of  social  order.  It  approves  or 
disapproves  the  members  of  the  community  with  re- 
spect to  their  conformity  to  these  standards^  and 
succeeds  in  a  remarkable  degree  in  pressing  its  ap- 
praisals upon  the  whole  community.  It  teaches  not 
only  adults,  but  the  children  of  each  rising  genera- 
tion the  thou-shalts  and  the  thou-shalt-nots  of  the 
moral  law  perhaps  more  universally  and  effectively 
than  any  other  social  organ  could  possibly  do. 

Moreover,  the  Church  inculcates  beliefs  and 
faiths  which  motivate  human  behavior  to  an  incom- 
parable degree.  These  beliefs  and  faiths  permeate 
the  whole  community  and  constitute  an  important 
element  of  the  social  atmosphere.  Nobody  has  to 
explain  these  beliefs  in  the  course  of  conversation 

121 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

with  his  neighbor;  he  assumes  that  his  neighbor  un- 
derstands them  and  perhaps  accepts  them,  and  that 
assumption  is  valid  because  of  the  work  of  the 
Church.  These  beliefs  and  faiths  are  with  men  in 
solitude  as  well  as  in  society,  and  patrol  their  be- 
havior while  the  policeman  is  asleep. 

But  perhaps  the  most  significant  of  all  is  the 
body  of  spiritual  ideals  and  feelings  which  the 
Church  in  all  the  centuries  has  fostered.  Emotions 
and  ideals — and  an  ideal  is  but  a  great  proposition 
emotionally  conceived — are  the  mainspring  of 
human  activity.  When  these  enthusiasms  dwindle, 
life  is  dwarfed  and  its  value  sinks  to  a  low  ebb. 
Then  the  appetites  and  passions  of  the  baser  nature 
break  from  their  restraints,  and  chaos  and  pande- 
monium are  the  program  of  the  day? 

Thus  the  Church  stands  like  a  sentinel  from  age 
to  age  guarding  the  citadel  of  social  order. 

Not  only  may  it  be  said  that  this  is  the  function 
of  the  Church,  but  it  may  also  be  added  that  only 
as  the  agency  of  this  function  is  institutionalized  can 
it  perform  the  function.  The  tasks  of  social  control 
do  not,  many  of  them,  perform  themselves.  On  the 
other  hand,  they  are  performed  by  institutions,  and 
these  institutions  must  be  built  upon  solid,  substantial 
foundations  of  organization  and  support.     Other- 

122 


The  Social  Function  of  the  Church 

wise  the  old  adage  that  what  is  everybody's  business 
is  nobody's  business  is  illustrated  again,  and  pres- 
ently the  function  ceases  to  be  performed.  However 
imperfect  the  Church  may  be  as  to  its  organization 
and  personnel  (and  what  else  could  be  expected 
among  faulty  human  beings?),  it  is  not  imperfect 
with  respect  to  its  ideals.  But  these  ideals  would 
gradually  fade  away  were  they  not  conserved  and 
promulgated  by  a  stable  institution  organized  and 
maintained  for  that  very  purpose. 

And  the  efficiency  with  which  the  Church  has  per- 
formed this  function  is  the  very  reason  why  we  fail 
to  perceive  the  function  itself.  Our  whole  social 
atmosphere  is  so  permeated  with  what  the  Church 
has  contributed  to  it  that  we  are  as  unconscious  of 
it  as  we  are  unconscious  of  the  air  and  the  sunshine, 
and  for  precisely  the  same  reasons.  This  moral  at- 
mosphere which  the  Church  has  generated  is  the 
very  medium  in  which  we  live  and,  unconscious  of 
it,  devote  our  attention  to  our  every-day  affairs.  But 
notice  how  these  moral  standards  do  permeate  the 
community.  In  the  dooryard  of  the  humble  or  in 
the  nurseries  of  the  rich  accost  any  child  of  a  dozen 
years  of  age  and  ask  him  what  is  right  or  wrong, 
and  why,  and  you  will  presently  learn  that  immedi- 
ately or  by  proxy  he  has  been  sitting  at  the  feet  of 

123 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

the  Church.  The  readiness  with  which  hypocrites 
in  the  Church  are  condemned  by  those  outside  the 
Church  is  convincing  evidence  of  the  success  with 
which  the  Church  has  performed  her  task  of  teach- 
ing all  the  world  what  the  Christian  virtues  are. 
Nor  are  we  to  estimate  the  Church's  influence  in 
the  community  solely  by  the  numbers  who  frequent 
the  church-building  itself.  For  we  are  well  aware 
that  the  large  percentage  of  the  people,  even  those 
who  have  not  darkened  the  door  of  the  church  for 
many  years,  are  yet  fairly  well  informed  as  to  what 
ideals  and  hopes,  beliefs  and  faiths,  and  moral  stand- 
ards the  Church  stands  for.  Moreover,  they  are 
far  from  being  unmoved  by  the  public  opinion  which 
the  Church  has  generated.  No  better  illustration  of 
this  fact  can  be  cited  than  the  all  but  universal  de- 
mand in  time  of  death  for  a  religious  funeral. 

Again,  imagine  the  Church  eliminated  from  the 
community.  How,  then,  would  these  motives 
and  standards  of  behavior,  these  foundations  of  so- 
cial order,  be  maintained?  The  public  school  by 
common  consent  is  deplorably  inadequate  to  the  task, 
not  only  in  America,  where  religious  instruction  is 
debarred,  but  also  in  Europe,  where  it  is  explicitly 
fostered.  Literature  and  the  theater  could  not  be 
relied  upon  to  supply  the  deficency,  for  they  both 

124 


The  Social  Function  of  the  Church 

cater  notoriously  to  the  commercial  demand,  vend- 
ing that  which  sells  the  best.  And  it  is  a  historic 
fact,  instanced,  for  example,  by  the  English  litera- 
ture of  the  eighteenth  century,  that  a  corrupt  age 
demands  corrupt  literature.  Law  and  the  police 
could  not  meet  the  need,  for  they  can  only  repress 
the  occasional  offender,  and  their  success  depends 
upon  the  spontaneous  good  behavior  of  the  vast  ma- 
jority. Tradition  might  be  relied  upon  for  a  time, 
but  only  for  a  time.  Religion  and  morals  could  not 
die  out,  to  be  sure,  for  the  first  is  an  instinct  of 
human  nature,  and  the  second  is  a  social  necessity 
without  which  civilization  can  not  continue.  Nature 
would  in  time  reassert  herself,  therefore,  and  the  in- 
stitutions which  we  have  imagined  eliminated,  or 
something  designed  with  an  identical  end  in  view, 
would  spring  spontaneously  into  existence  again. 

The  most  significant  testimonial  to  the  social 
effects  of  the  Church's  ordinary  ministration  to  the 
moral  and  spiritual  needs  of  individuals  may  be 
gathered  from  the  history  of  the  Dark  Ages.  Dur- 
ing this  period  the  work  of  the  Church  was  devoted 
almost  exclusively  to  individuals.  The  social  func- 
tions of  the  Church  and  of  religion  were  almost 
totally  undreamed  of,  so  much  so  that  for  centuries 
the  ideal  held  up  was  that  the  best  possible  life  and 

125 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 


the  most  proper  means  of  salvation  was  the  most 
complete  withdrawal  from  society.  Nevertheless  it 
was  during  these  centuries  that  the  Church  accom- 
plished the  most  important  social  function  that  she 
has  ever  accomplished,  and  perhaps  the  most  impor- 
tant function  that  has  ever  been  accomplished  by 
any  institution.  For  notice,  at  the  date  of  the  down- 
fall of  Rome  the  world  was  populated  with  the  de- 
moralized and  decadent  Roman  peoples  and  the  bar- 
barous invaders  from  the  north.  These  two  races 
were  in  violent  conflict,  and  all  the  safeguards  of 
life,  property,  and  happiness  were  destroyed  to- 
gether in  the  general  catastrophe.  Almost  nothing 
remained  intact  but  the  Christian  Church,  to  which 
the  Romans  gave  spiritual  allegiance,  and  to  which 
the  Germans  either  had  been  converted  or  were  to 
be  converted  in  a  few  centuries.  The  task  that  con- 
fronted the  Church,  the  task  that  characterized  the 
Middle  Ages  was  to  tame,  civilize,  and  socialize  the 
violent  elements  of  this  turbulent  society,  training 
them  to  social  order  and  laying  the  foundations  for 
modern  civilization. 

Of  this  outlook  the  Church  of  the  sixth  century 
was  almost  totally  ignorant.  She  was  also  totally 
unaware  of  the  fact  that  this  task  confronted  her. 
She  was,  instead,  imbued  with  the  purpose  of  pro- 

126 


The  Social  Function  of  the  Church 


tecting  her  property  and  her  devotees,  and  saving 
the  souls  of  the  people,  both  Roman  and  barbarian, 
from  hell.  These  tasks  she  sought  to  accomplish 
by  bringing  the  minds  of  the  barbarians  into  the 
most  abject  submission  to  her  creeds  and  ritual. 
This  she  succeeded  in  doing,  and  there  followed  a 
thousand  years  of  ecclesiastical  authority  and  sub- 
ordination of  the  individual  will  to  that  authority 
in  all  matters  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  interest. 
And  the  result  every  student  of  history  well  knows. 
Little  by  little  she  developed  the  intellectual  and 
moral  life  of  the  European  peoples.  Gradually  they 
became  civilized,  until  the  social  task  of  the  medi- 
aeval Church  bore  full  fruitage  in  the  Renaissance, 
the  Reformation,  the  Enlightenment,  and  the  rise 
of  modern  democracy. 

And  all  this  may  well  be  taken  as  a  type  of  the 
social  service  that  is  always  being  accomplished  by 
the  Church  that  performs  its  usual  tasks  from  age 
to  age,  and  which  is,  of  course,  augmented  with  in- 
creased activity  and  influence  on  the  part  of  the 
Church. 

There  are  hundreds  of  ministers  who  are  op- 
pressed with  the  burden  and  futility  of  their  work. 
They  are  discouraged  because  they  see  neither  souls 
being  saved  in  large  numbers  nor  social  work  being 

127 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 


accomplished.  The  chief  necessity  of  such  men  is 
an  enlargement  of  their  conception  of  the  Church's 
function,  and  a  deeper  insight  into  the  social  conse- 
quences of  the  moral  and  spiritual  life  to  the  fos- 
tering of  which  the  Church  devotes  herself  from 
year  to  year.  Let  such  ministers  live  the  spiritual 
life  themselves,  and  minister  to  the  spiritual  needs 
of  the  people.  Let  them  keep  their  churches  painted 
and  the  church-bells  ringing,  thus  presenting,  as  it 
were,  pleasing  sensory  symbols  of  the  spiritual  life 
to  the  ears  and  eyes  of  the  populace.  Let  them 
preach  the  gospel  faithfully  every  Sunday  to  such  as 
willingly  come  to  the  church,  gathering  in  as  many 
as  they  can.  Let  them  see  that  as  large  a  fraction 
as  possible  of  the  children  are  taught  from  week  to 
week  the  fundamentals  of  Christian  faith,  morals, 
and  ideals.  Let  them  visit  the  homes  of  the  people 
and  befriend  such  people  as  will  welcome  their 
friendship.  Let  them  marry  happy  lovers  and  bap- 
tize innocent  children.  Let  them  bury  the  dead  and 
invoke  the  divine  blessing  upon  all  social  functions 
where  they  are  invited  to  do  so.  Let  them  surround 
themselves  with  as  large  a  constituency  as  possible 
of  faithful  Christian  Church  members.  And  let 
them  remember  that  the  same  thing  is  being  done  in 
every  village  and  in  every  ward  of  every  city  in  the 

128 


The  Social  Function  of  the  Church 

whole  broad  land.  Let  them  thus  feel  themselves 
companioned  by  an  innumerable  host  of  those  who 
are  doing  the  same  work  as  they,  a  work  more  vital 
to  the  stability  of  society  and  the  moral  and  social 
progress  of  mankind  than  any  other  work  whatso- 
ever. 

And  let  the  conscientious  layman  who  helps  to 
pay  the  bills  and  do  the  work  of  the  Church  and 
exemplify  the  Christian  life  take  heart.  For  it  is 
through  such  as  he  that  the  social  application  of 
Christianity  is  most  effectively  being  accomplished. 

Let  this  part  of  the  discussion  be  concluded, 
therefore,  with  two  special  pleas.  The  first  is  for 
the  evangelization  of  the  un-churched  centers  of 
our  population,  those  congested  sections  of  our  great 
cities  which  have  been  so  aptly  characterized  as 
"folk  swamps."  If  the  circuit-rider  evangelizing 
the  rural  slums  of  our  frontier  three-quarters  of  a 
century  ago  exerted  as  great  an  influence  upon  the 
morals  and  intelligence  of  the  settlers  as  he  is  cred- 
ited by  some  of  our  historians  with  doing,  why  is 
not  the  urban  slum  amenable  to  similar  influences? 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  what  Peter  Cartwright  did 
among  the  swamps  of  Central  Illinois,  Booth  has 
done  among  the  folk-swamps  of  London.  Our 
cities  need  social  settlements,  but  some  of  those  who 

9  129 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

have  conducted  the  most  successful  social  settlements 
are  reputed  to  have  confessed  that  the  people  need 
even  more  the  preaching  of  the  gospel. 

The  second  plea  is  in  behalf  of  the  children  and 
their  devotion  to  the  Church.  It  is  of  the  greatest 
importance  that  they  be  taught  by  precept  and  by 
example  to  frequent  the  services  of  the  Church  and 
revere  its  teachings  and  influence.  It  will  be  a  great 
day  for  America  and  for  American  life  and  civiliza- 
tion when  a  preponderating  majority  of  her  children 
have  learned  to  sing  in  sweet  childish  simplicity: 

"I  love  Thy  church,  O  God! 
Her  walls  before  Thee  stand, 
Dear  as  the  apple  of  Thine  eye 
And  graven  on  Thy  hand." 


130 


VIII 

The  Social  Need  of  a  Religious 
Awakening 


The  Social  Need  of  a  Religious 
Awakening 

THE  pessimist  and  the  calamity  howler  are  the 
most  unwelcome  members  of  American  society. 
The  prediction  that  the  country  is  going  to  the  dogs 
furnishes  perennial  grist  for  the  funny-paper  mill. 
Our  conceit  prefers  the  superlatives  of  the  typical 
old-time  orator  with  his  "grandest  civilization  upon 
which  the  sun  ever  shone,"  and  his  "sublimest  hero- 
ism that  was  ever  displayed  upon  the  bloody  field 
of  battle."  We  are  confident  that  our  resources  are 
limitless  and  our  future  immeasurably  glorious.  Are 
not  we  of  Anglo-Saxon  blood  in  this  the  United 
States  of  America? 

It  irritates  us  a  little  to  be  told  that  our  public 
out-door  charities  fail  because  we  are  gifted  with 
the  most  administrative  awkwardness  of  any  civil- 
ized people  in  the  world.  It  really  angers  us  to  be 
laughed  at  by  the  Germans  because  of  our  back- 
wardness in  the  practical  application  of  science.  We 
are  a  trifle  chagrined  to  compare  our  military  sani- 
tation and  our  death  rates  in  Cuba  with  the  Japanese 

133 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

record  in  Manchuria.  It  is  a  rather  rude  awaken- 
ing to  be  urged  in  the  midst  of  a  political  campaign 
to  favor  progressive  legislation  that  Europe  has  had 
in  successful  operation  for  more  than  a  generation. 
Our  inability  to  see  the  hole  in  the  doughnut  is  droll 
jndeed.  But  since  blind  optimism  is  one  of  the  symp- 
toms of  tuberculosis,  the  friend  who  warns  against 
dampness,  darkness,  and  dirt  should  hardly  be  stig- 
matized for  the  unpardonable  sin  of  blind  pessimism. 
There  probably  never  has  been  an  age  of  greater 
promise  than  the  present.  That  promise  of  the  fu- 
ture is  based  upon  an  unparalleled  material  develop- 
ment, upon  rising  democracy,  upon  increasing  intelli- 
gence and  the  development  of  science,  and  upon  an 
expanding  sympathy  and  humanitarianism.  Con- 
sidering what  we  have  succeeded  in  accomplishing 
in  the  last  two  centuries,  and  the  capital  that  we  have 
acquired  for  further  progress,  it  does  seem  gratui- 
tous indeed  to  suggest  the  possibility  of  ultimate 
failure  and  collapse  on  the  part  of  our  splendid 
civilization.  But  there  have  been  other  periods  of 
achievement  and  progress.  The  most  notable 
among  these  perhaps  are  the  period  of  the  Greek 
enlightenment  and  the  period  of  the  Renaissance. 
Nevertheless  the  promise  of  both  of  these  epochs 
was  disappointed.     The  historic  tragedy  occurred, 

134 


The  Social  Need  of  a  Religious  Awakening 


in  the  first  instance,  of  a  civilization  gradually  crum- 
bling into  decay,  and  in  the  second  instance  the  bright 
promises  of  progress  were  postponed  for  half  a 
thousand  years.  For  alongside  of  the  constructive 
forces  that  gave  rise  to  the  hopes  of  these  epochs 
there  were  also  destructive  forces  at  work,  and  these 
destructive  forces,  though  unnoticed  at  the  time, 
proved  more  potent  in  the  end  than  the  constructive. 

It  may  be  so  with  us  to-day.  Some  of  our  most 
constructive  writers  admit  this  possibility.* 

The  study  of  these  former  epochs  is  instructive 
indeed.  The  Greek  or  Roman  civilization  culmi- 
nated in  some  of  its  phases  at  the  period  of  the 
Greek  enlightenment  and  in  other  phases  during  the 
Augustinian  age.  That  civilization  was  character- 
ized, through  the  earlier  part  of  these  centuries 
especially,  with  intellectual  achievement  of  the  first 
magnitude,  with  democratic  political  institutions  not 
wholly  different  from  some  of  ours  and  in  commer- 
cial activities  of  great  volume  and  extent.  Upon  the 
basis  of  these,  and  these  alone,  boundless  hopes 
might  legitimately  have  been  founded;  but  there 
were  also  other  forces  at  work.  Among  these  was  a 
bad  distribution  of  wealth  through  the  Greco-Roman 

*See  Ross'  "Social  Control,"  p.  436;  Rauschenbusch's  "Christianizing  the 
Social  Order,"  p.  29;  Eucken's  "The  Problem  of  Human  Life,"  p.  300;  Bagley's 
"  Educational  Values,"  p.  61. 

135 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

world  and  the  breakdown  of  the  family,  especially 
among  the  Romans.  But  the  most  destructive  social 
force  of  the  period  was  positive  individualism.  This 
expressed  itself  explicitly  and  with  open  avowal  in 
Greek  philosophy.  Epicurianism  and  Stoicism  were 
both  hedonistic  at  heart,  and  the  Sophists  asserted  as 
their  central  maxim  that  the  individual  is  the  stand- 
ard and  criterion  in  everything.  It  manifested  itself 
in  the  rebellion  against  convention  in  Greek  morals 
and  the  almost  universal  skepticism  as  to  the  author- 
ity of  duty.  All  this  took  a  practical  form  in  the 
excessive  personal  ambitions  and  the  unrestrained 
individual  competition  that  prevailed  in  Greek  so- 
ciety, and,  what  was  perhaps  worse,  between  Greek 
states.  As  for  the  Greek  religion,  it  was  utterly 
devoid  of  any  such  co-operative  ideals  as  we  now 
possess  in  Christianity.  All  this  gave  rise  to  centrif- 
ugal movements,  resulting  in  the  moral  and  social 
decadence  of  the  first  century,  which  Rogers,  in  his 
history  of  philosophy,  characterizes  in  the  following 
words : 

"The  rapidly  increasing  corruption  of  the  ruling 
class,  the  glaring  contrasts  of  luxury  and  misery,  the 
insecurity  of  life  and  property,  the  sense  of  world- 
weariness  which  marked  the  passing  away  of  moral 
enthusiasms,  all  brought  home  to  man  the  feeling 

136 


The  Social  Need  of  a  Religious  Awakening 


that  the  world  was  growing  old  and  that  some  moral 
catastrophe  was  impending." 

But  imagine  Aristides  or  Alexander  approached 
with  the  suggestion  that  the  ancient  world  was  mov- 
ing toward  a  dark  age.  Imagine  Pericles  or  Aris- 
totle, or  even  Cicero  or  Caesar,  foreseeing  the  col- 
lapse of  ancient  civilization.  Nevertheless,  blind  as 
they  were  to  the  facts,  these  destructive  forces  were 
at  work,  and  ultimately  brought  forth  their  fruits. 

The  Renaissance  epoch,  with  the  period  imme- 
diately following,  is  equally  interesting.  Dante  and 
half  a  score  of  lesser  literary  geniuses  were  adding 
their  names  to  the  list  of  the  immortals.  The  hori- 
zon of  the  earth  was  being  widened  by  the  discovery 
of  the  great  navigators,  and  the  boundary  of  the 
universe  was  being  extended  by  the  great  astrono- 
mers. Commercial  and  industrial  developments 
were  greater  than  Europe  had  ever  seen  before. 
And  several  important  inventions  had  stimulated  the 
imagination  of  men  with  the  possibilities  of  applied 
science.  No  wonder  Moore  was  inspired  by  these 
events  to  Utopian  dreams,  and  Erasmus  hoped  for 
the  time  when  the  Golden  Rule  should  dominate  di- 
plomacy and  government  exist  for  the  benefit  of  the 
governed. 

Nevertheless  these  bright  dreams  and  alluring 

137 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

promises  were  doomed  to  disappointment,  and  the 
centuries  following  were  drenched  in  the  blood  of 
peasants'  rebellions  and  religious  wars.  Religious 
liberty  miscarried,  the  Reformation  degenerated 
into  a  brood  of  warring  sects,  and  rising  democracy 
was  crushed  under  the  tyrannous  heels  of  Henry 
VIII  and  Charles  V. 

In  casting  about  for  the  causes  of  this  disap- 
pointment they  may  be  discovered  principally  in  a 
single  fact;  viz.,  the  superstitious  ignorance  of  the 
masses  of  the  common  people.  This  ignorance  was 
the  destructive  force  which  successfully  held  in  check 
for  nearly  five  centuries  all  the  constructive  forces 
upon  which  the  hopes  of  the  age  were  based.  There 
is  always  a  certain  aggregate  of  forces  at  work  in 
society,  whether  in  our  age  or  any  other.  And  it 
stands  to  reason  that  while  some  of  these  forces  are 
constructive,  some  also  are  destructive ;  and  the  ques- 
tion may  always  be  legitimately  and  wisely  raised 
whether  the  destructive  or  constructive  forces  pre- 
dominate in  the  balance  of  power.  It  is  always  well 
to  make  sane,  thoughtful,  optimistic  investigation 
of  the  enemy's  position  and  forces,  so  as  to  make 
sure  of  victory  in  the  inevitable  engagement.  It 
must  be  admitted,  and  all  wise  friends  of  progress 
will  be  willing  to  admit  it,  that  some  of  the  disinte- 

138 


The  Social  Need  of  a  Religious  Awakening 

grating  forces  that  were  operative  in  these  previous 
epochs  are  also  operative  among  us  to-day. 

First  may  be  mentioned  the  tendency  to  appraise 
wealth  above  life.  Numerous  manifestations  of  this 
phenomenon  might  be  remarked.  There  is  the  will- 
ingness to  fatten  the  federal  fisc  at  the  crib  of  the 
liquor  interests  and  pay  the  bills  of  the  National  Gov- 
ernment with  the  miserable  forfeitures  of  drunken- 
ness. There  is  the  glaring  inequitableness  of  our 
distribution  of  wealth,  which  Professor  Patton  char- 
acterizes by  asserting  that  only  twenty-five  per  cent 
of  our  population  have  shared  in  the  benefits  of  our 
material  progress.  There  is  the  terrible  toll  of 
industrial  accident  and  disease,  and  the  exploitation 
of  childhood  in  the  interests  of  gain.  All  of  these 
manifestations  of  the  accumulation  of  wealth  at  the 
expense  of  man  are  brought  into  even  clearer  light 
by  the  very  protest  which  is  being  so  effectively  raised 
against  them  of  late. 

Another  evidence  of  the  destructive  forces  at 
work  in  our  society  is  the  prevalence  of  vice  and  the 
diseases  and  death  that  follow  in  its  wake.  Again, 
there  are  the  disappointments  of  democratic  govern- 
ment displayed  in  the  corrupt  dominance  of  the  great 
financial  interest  and  in  the  shameful  political  de- 
bauchery of  so  many  of  our  cities. 

139 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

Again,  there  is  the  decreasing  fecundity  of  our 
native  white  race,  indicated  by  population  statistics. 
This  even  raises  the  question  whether  our  native 
population  may  not  ultimately  be  supplanted  by  de- 
scendants of  immigrants,  and  whether  the  civiliza- 
tion our  forefathers  have  produced  can  be  appreci- 
ated and  transmitted  to  the  future  by  alien  races 
such  as  are  now  flocking  to  our  shores. 

It  will  be  seen  that  under  all  these  moral  phe- 
nomena there  lies  a  common  cause;  viz.,  the  exag- 
gerated individualism  of  the  present  age.  Individu- 
alism as  an  ethical  philosophy  is  hedonistic.  It  be- 
lieves that  the  purpose  of  life  is  pleasure,  and  that 
the  value  of  life  is  to  be  measured  in  the  amount 
of  pleasure  which  the  individual  secures.  It  can 
not  bear  restraints.  It  suffocates  with  disappoint- 
ment. It  is  egotistical  and  selfish.  It  repudiates 
duties,  ignores  responsibilities,  and  seeks  to  attain 
its  ends  without  regard  to  the  like  ends  of  others. 
It  interprets  personal  liberty  into  license,  and  refuses 
to  limit  freedom  by  voluntary  responsibility. 

The  individualist  has  habituated  this  philosophy 
of  life  into  his  mode  of  action  so  thoroughly  that 
the  philosophy  is  not  held  explicitly  but  implicitly 
and  subconsciously.  The  individualist  can  not 
brook  failure  of  his  plans  or  miscarriage  of  his  am- 

140 


The  Social  Need  of  a  Religious  Awakening 


bitions.  He  passes  his  way  but  once,  and  therefore 
he  insists  passionately  upon  plucking  the  flowers  that 
grow  along  the  way.  For  he  is  impressed  with  the 
fact  that  he  can  never  return  to  gather  what  he  has 
missed.  The  individualist  is  a  willful  child  and  a 
selfish  brother,  a  domineering  husband  and  a  tyran- 
nous father,  grasping  in  business,  unsympathetic  and 
disobliging  as  a  neighbor,  self-centered  as  a  citizen, 
and  self-seeking  as  a  public  servant. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  individualism  as  a  sub- 
conscious habituated  philosophy  of  life  is  extremely 
prevalent  among  us.  And  the  causes  are  not  far  to 
seek.  It  is  a  by-product  of  the  rise  of  democracy 
and  comes  from  that  one-sided  interpretation  of  dem- 
ocratic principles  which  emphasizes  its  benefits,  but 
fails  to  recognize  its  responsibilities.  It  arises  also 
out  of  the  intellectual  freedom  of  the  age,  the  fact 
that  men  are  no  longer  under  the  bonds  of  dogma- 
tism, but  instead,  freedom  of  thought  is  the  motto 
of  the  times.  By  this  freedom  selfish  men  are  un- 
leashed from  the  restraints  of  controlling  beliefs  and 
ideals.  But  principally  it  is  the  result  of  the  com- 
mercialism of  the  age  and  the  emphasis  that  it  has 
laid.  Wealth  is  a  means  primarily  to  self-gratifica- 
tion; and  in  an  age  especially  devoted  to  wealth- 
getting,    self-gratification    is    the    inevitable    conse- 

141 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

quence.  Moreover,  the  sense  of  power  that  results 
from  the  possession  of  wealth  can  not  but  augment 
this  sentiment.  The  effects  are  evident  everywhere 
in  the  starting  up  of  the  screws  of  duty  that  hold 
society  together.  Individualism  is  the  disease  that 
is  giving  rise  to  nearly  all  of  the  symptoms  of  moral 
decay  just  enumerated.  In  addition  to  these  it  has 
generated  the  current  obtuseness  of  mind  relative 
to  the  higher  spiritual  values. 

These  constitute  a  sufficiently  complete  list  of  the 
disintegrating  forces  that  are  at  work  in  modern 
society.  The  similiarity  to  the  forces  that  have 
blighted  former  ages  is  strikingly  evident,  and  they 
may  well  receive  the  thoughtful  consideration  of 
serious  men  and  women. 

The  great  medicine  needed  is  a  more  adequate 
supply  of  moral  earnestness  on  the  part  of  all  our 
people.  Just  as  the  general  ignorance  of  the  masses 
brought  to  naught  the  bright  promises  of  the  Re- 
naissance, so  the  loose  moral  adjustments  of  our 
modern  life,  as  indicated  in  the  preceding  para- 
graphs, are  our  serious  danger.  Exaggerated  indi- 
vidualism, precisely  the  same  cause  that  undermined, 
more  than  any  other,  the  Greco-Roman  civilization, 
is  at  work  among  the  foundations  of  our  own  civili- 
zation.    We  need  a  firm  socio-personal  morality; 

142 


The  Social  Need  of  a  Religious  Awakening 

that  is,  a  personal  morality  that  sees  its  ends  in  the 
general  welfare.  We  need  to  develop  as  a  motive 
for  this  morality  a  greater  volume  and  intensity  of 
socio-personal  religion;  that  is,  a  religion  that  finds 
its  ideals,  its  enthusiasms,  and  its  motives  in  the  so- 
cial welfare. 

The  possibilities  along  this  line  have  scarcely 
been  realized.  It  seems  entirely  practicable  to  hope 
that  limitless  moral  resources  may  be  developed  here, 
for  without  doubt  humanity  is  as  religious  at  heart 
to-day  as  in  any  preceding  age.  To  be  sure,  reli- 
gious energy  may  be  latent  rather  than  active,  but 
its  occasional  almost  volcanic  local  eruptions  under 
the  leadership  of  professional  revivalists  seems  to 
indicate  that  it  is  available.  The  capacity  for  faith, 
spiritual  longing,  and  devotion  to  religious  enter- 
prises is  surely  as  great  as  ever.  If  only  the  souls 
of  our  contemporaries  could  be  led  to  see  the  divine 
plan  in  social  relations,  and  God's  law  in  the  moral 
law,  and  salvation  in  the  social  life,  there  is  no  telling 
what  might  result  in  behalf  of  social  betterment. 

There  is  probably  more  sympathy  and  altruism 
in  the  world  per  capita  than  ever  before.  It  could 
hardly  be  otherwise,  considering  the  growth  of  de- 
mocracy and  enlightenment  during  the  past  century 
and  a  half,  and  it  is  evident  in  the  humanitarian 

143 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

movements  of  the  last  generation.  If  only  this  sym- 
pathy and  altruism  could  be  utilized  as  a  motive  for 
moral  life,  if  only  men  could  be  led  to  see  the  dire 
consequences  to  their  loved  ones  and  to  society  of 
vicious  lives,  this  growing  sympathy  might  be  utilized 
for  the  realization  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  among  us. 

But  above  all  there  is  a  tremendous  amount  of 
social  interest  and  idealism.  How  else  can  we  ac- 
count for  the  almost  fanatical  display  of  feeling  that 
seems  capable  of  developing  during  political  cam- 
paigns? How  else  can  we  account  for  the  growth 
of  socialism  and  of  the  labor  movement?  How 
else  can  we  explain  the  tremendously  increased  inter- 
est in  the  social  sciences,  the  development  of  philan- 
thropy, and  the  spread  of  social  religion?  If  only 
this  social  interest  and  altruism  could  be  attached 
to  the  cause  of  individual  moral  regeneration,  it 
might  lift  our  nation  and  our  people  to  a  safe  moral 
level,  as  a  raft  may  be  made  to  lift  a  sunken  dere- 
lict out  of  the  sand  and  mud  of  a  river  bottom  when 
the  tide  comes  in. 

Such  a  moral  regeneration  as  this,  flowering 
forth  out  of  the  latent  religious  capacity  of  the 
people,  out  of  the  growing  sympathy  of  the  modern 
man  and  the  budding  social  interests,  is  a  regener- 
ation worthy  of  our  day-dreams  and  our  prayers; 

144 


The  Social  Need  of  a  Religious  Awakening 

for  day-dreams  and  prayers  may  vitally  contribute 
to  its  actual  realization. 

Stranger  things  have  happened.  We  have  all 
read  of  that  great  movement  of  the  Middle  Ages 
which  marshaled  all  Western  Europe  to  the  enter- 
prise of  recapturing  the  Holy  Sepulcher  from  the 
infidels.  What  a  display  of  religious  devotion,  en- 
ergy, and  sacrifice  to  a  great  though  mistaken  ideal, 
to  a  cause  supposed  to  be  in  the  interests  of  the  gen- 
eral welfare !  What  might  it  not  have  accomplished 
had  it  been  more  wisely  directed.  But  does  the  in- 
telligence, social  enthusiasm,  and  the  religious  fervor 
of  the  modern  world  aggregate  any  less  than  the 
religious  fanaticism  of  that  day?  Does  the  social 
ideal  appeal  any  less  powerfully  to  the  imagination 
of  our  day  than  the  Holy  Sepulcher  appealed  to  the 
imagination  of  that  day? 

God  grant  that  a  crusade  commensurate  in  devo- 
tion and  enthusiasm  to  the  crusade  which  sought  to 
rescue  the  Holy  Sepulcher  from  the  Saracens  may  en- 
list the  devotion  and  enthusiasm  of  our  modern  age, 
to  the  end  that  the  infidelity  of  selfishness  and  vice 
may  be  driven  out  and  the  Kingdom  of  God  set  up 
in  the  midst  of  our  society.  May  the  spirit  of  Peter 
the  Hermit  come  again  to  some  humble  and  fervent 
prophet  from  among  the  common  people,   a  man 

10  145 


Personal  Religion  and  the  Social  Awakening 

who  knows  the  miseries  and  temptations,  the  pas- 
sions and  the  suffering  of  the  masses  as  well  as  that 
earlier  prophet  knew  the  insults  and  indignities  suf- 
fered by  pilgrims  to  the  Holy  Land  1  May  he  arouse 
the  common  people!  May  he  be  able  to  fire  the 
hearts  of  the  men  in  Halsted  Street  and  the  East 
Side  to  enlist  in  the  crusade — a  crusade  against  the 
vices  of  their  own  lives,  in  behalf  of  their  children, 
their  homes,  and  the  republic !  And  as  the  fire  he 
kindles  spreads,  may  some  Urban  appear  among  the 
ecclesiastical  leaders,  who  shall  discern  the  full  sig- 
nificance of  such  a  moral  and  spiritual  crusade! 
May  he,  before  the  representatives  of  the  Church 
assembled  at  some  modern  Clermont,  take  up  the 
message  and  preach  it  with  an  eloquence  and  per- 
suasiveness that  shall  move  the  souls  of  all  who 
hear  him  till  they  shall  cry  in  response :  "Deus  vult! 
Deus  vult!"  And  may  this  cry  echo  from  council 
to  council,  from  city  to  city,  from  village  to  village, 
until  it  shall  reverberate  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land!  May  the  crusade  become  as 
universal  as  was  that  other  crusade  of  a  thousand 
years  ago !  For  certain  it  is  that  God  does  will  it. 
He  wills  that  the  millions  of  our  people  whose  lives 
are  under  the  blight  of  selfishness,  sin,  vice,  and 

146 


The  Social  Need  of  a  Religious  Awakening 

despair  may  be  regenerated  and  redeemed.  He 
wills  that  thereby  our  civilization  shall  also  be  re- 
deemed from  the  destructive  forces  that  menace  it, 
so  that  the  social  dreams  and  hopes  of  the  twentieth 
century  may  be  realized  and  the  Kingdom  of  God 
may  come  upon  the  earth. 


147 


Date  Due 

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